iU. ^^ «» 



District of Columbia Society, Sons of the American 

Revolution 



A 



DDRESSES DELIVERED 
AND PAPERS READ 



BEFORE THE 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SOCIETY 



AT THE 



Monthly Meetings between February 22, 1911, and 
February 22. 1912 




WASHINGTON 

March. 1912 



District of Columbia Society, Sons of the American 

Revolution 



A 



DDRESSES DELIVERED 
AND PAPERS READ 



BEFORE THE 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SOCIETY 



AT THE 



Monthly Meetings between February 22, 1911, and 
February 22, 1912 




WASHINGTON 
March, 1912 



President. 

Colonel WILLIAM B. THOMPSON. 

Vice-Presiden ts. 

WILLIAM VAN ZANT COX. 

WALLACE DONALD McLEAN. 

Lieut.-Col. GILBERT C. KNIFFIN. 

Secretary. 

PAUL BROCKETT. 

Treasurer. 

PHILIP F. EARNER. 

Registrar. 

ALBERT D. SPANGLER. 

Assistant Registrar. 

JOHN E. FENWICK. 

Historian. 

SELDEN M. ELY. 

Librarian. 

CHARLES W. STEWART. 

Chaplain. 
Rev. THOMAS S. CHILDS. 
Hoard of Management, consisting of the Officers ex-officio 
and the following Compatriots. 
WILLIAM L. MARSH. 
SIDNEY I. RESSELIEVRE. 
FRANCIS H. PARSONS. 
ALBERT J. GORE. 
FREDERICK C. BRYAN. 
Commander JOHN H. MOORE, U. S. N. 
Hon. EDWARD B. MOORE. 
FRANK B. MARTIN. 
GEORGE C. MAYNARD. 
HENRY P. HOLDEN. 
FRED. D. OWEN. 
JOHN G. GREENAWALT. 
WM. A. DeCAINDRY. 
EDGAR B. STOCKING. 
GEORGE R. IDE. 



. 5 '/ 1^ 



Colonel WILLIAM B. THOMPSON presents to his fellow 
Compatriots of the District of Columbia Society, with his 
compliments, this publication as an evidence of his grateful 
recognition of their partiality, and as an acknowledgment of 
his indebtedness to those who so cheerfully and generously 
responded to his requests for papers to be read at the monthly 
meetings. 

The charming address delivered at the meeting on "Ladies' 
Night," by Miss Janet E. Richards, on the subject of "Women 
of the Revolution," was unfortunately not taken down steno- 
graphically, and it is matter of regret to the publisher that he 
is not able to incorporate the address in this collection. 

He takes this opportunity to commend to the favorable con- 
sideration of the Society the continuance of the policy in- 
augurated at the October meeting of calling upon home talent 
among the membership for papers on Revolutionary and 
kindred topics to be read by the authors at the monthly meet- 
ings. 



CONTENTS 



Address of Rear-Admiral George W. Baird, U. S. N., 
(retired), on retiring from the Presidency on Febru- 
ary 22, 191 1 7 

Address of Colonel Wm. B. Thompson on assuming the 
Presidency on February 22, 191 1 14 

Address of Colonel Wm. B. Thompson on retiring from 
the Presidency on February 22, 1912 15 

Paper on Home-Making through Conservation, by F. H. 
Newell, Director of the U. S. Reclamation Service . . 21 

Paper on the subject of the Island of Guam, by William 
E. Safford, (late Lieutenant U. S. Navy) 29 

Paper on Lafayette and the French participation in the 
War of the American Revolution, by Compatriot Wm. 
A. DeCaindry 60 

Paper on a Naval Affair of the Revolutionary War, by 
Compatriot Rear-Admiral Colby M. Chester, U. S. N. 74 

Paper on Some Underlying Causes of the American 
Revolution, by Compatriot Selden M. Ely 85 

Paper on George Rogers Clark, by Compatriot Lieut.- 
Col. Gilbert C. Kniffin 97 



PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES 



ADDRESS OF REAR-ADMIRAL GEORGE W. BAIRD, 
U. S. N., (Retired) 

Delivered before tjie Society on retiring from the Presidency 
on February 22, 191 1. 

On leaving the office of President of the District of Columbia 
Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, it is proper 
that I render an account of my stewardship. I have been as 
busy as my advanced years and physical condition permitted, 
and my regret is that I was unable to do more in the interests of 
the Society. However, I will abridge my remarks, which, I 
fear, may be long enough to tire you. 

It goes without saying that in my acts I have banished the 
identity of the individual, and have confined my efforts to the 
purposes of the Society. 

Immediately after my election, a year ago, I received an 
invitation from the Daughters of the American Revolution to 
attend their annual reception, and was accorded the place of 
honor. I was again invited to the opening of their Annual 
Congress, and again accorded the honor due to a kindred 
Society. 

I was invited, as President of the Society, to attend the dedi- 
cations' of the statues of Kosciusco, Pulaski and the great 
Von Steuben, which I accepted in my capacity as your Presi- 
dent, and was given a place of honor. 

At our Annual Congress, at Toledo, our delegates were re- 
ceived with courtesy, and were royally entertained by the 
Anthony Wayne Chapter of the Sons and by the three local 
chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution. 

Early in the year we found that we could not get the use 
of the rooms we had rented for our Board and Committee 
meetings, owing to some other organization having pre-empted 
them; I therefore invited the Board to meet at my residence, 
which we found very agreeable, until the meeting of the dele- 
gates and the alternates promised to be so large that it gave 



8 ADMIRAL BAIRD. 

rise to the suggestion that we secure a permanent meeting-place 
of our own. The proposition grew until steps were taken to 
seek such a place, but which has not been decided. It was 
urged that we purchase the Washington Club, which at that 
time was in the market but has since been withdrawn. After 
hearing all the discussion on that subject I am of opinion that it 
would be best for us to rent an office room, in some office 
building, to be used as an office for our secretary, a library, and 
a repository for our relics and other property, and which may 
be used as a meeting place for our Board and Committees. 
This is what the Loyal Legion has found, in their experience, 
to be best. 

We reported, at our Annual Congress, with only eight dele- 
gates, though we had elected eleven, and had also provided 
eleven alternates. In the selection of delegates it would be 
better, in my opinion, to ascertain, if possible before electing 
a nominee, whether or not he is likely to be able to attend. 
Still, with our eight delegates, we were not the least, numeri- 
cally, in the representation. It was, however, an embarrass- 
ment to me to be obliged to report that our Society had lost 
the net number of seventeen members during the previous year. 

I am glad to be able to report that a member of our Society 
was re-elected Secretary General (unanimously) and that one 
of our delegates, Commander John H. Moore, U. S. Navy, 
(retired), was elected Vice-President General. It is a matter 
of regret that the Vice-Presidents take rank alphabetically, as 
our delegate received the largest vote polled for Vice-President, 
but his initial letter, ]\I, placed him lower on the list. 

While at Toledo the President General asked me about the 
condition of the crypt at the Naval Academy, which had been 
designated as the final resting place for the body of John Paul 
Jones, and I made the mistake of telling him that the Academy 
authorities had the matter in hand and it would surely be at- 
tended to, and that we need not give ourselves any concern 
about that. But at our May outing, which was at Annapolis, 
I was much disappointed to find the body of John Paul Jones, in 



ADMIRAL BAIRD. 9 

its coffin, under the Union Jack, shoved partly under the stairs 
in the midshipmen's dormitory, where the 1,200 students 
passed and repassed it many times each day. The Superin- 
tendent of the Academy informed me that his estimates for ap- 
propriation were already so large that he would not be able to 
include an item for the completion of the crypt under the 
chapel during the coming year, lest it prejudice the other esti- 
mates for the year. The Superintendent thought, too, that the 
completion of the chapel was a matter of construction, and 
separate from the expenses of the conduct of the Academy. 

This is the condition I found when I became your President. 
It came about in this way: Our Ambassador at Paris, Gen. 
Horace Porter, was President General of our Society, and 
spent $35,000 of his own funds in searching for, discovering, 
and identifying the body of John Paul Jones. It was brought 
to the United States in a battleship, with great eclat, and com- 
memorative services were held at the Naval Academy, at which 
the President of the United States, (Compatriot Roosevelt), the 
Secretary of the Navy, General Horace Porter, the French 
Ambassador and other distinguished men made addresses. 
There were present Senators, Members of Congress, Judges of 
the Supreme Court, officers of the Army and Navy, and the 
officers of the French fleet who had come across the Atlantic 
to pay tribute to the great hero ; and the Armory was crowded 
to its limit. It was agreed, that day, (and the President him- 
self was in it), that the unfinished chapel at the Academy 
should be left unfinished, that it might later be modified and a 
crypt prepared and handsomely decorated, to be used as the 
resting place for John Paul Jones, much after the style of the 
crypt in which the body of Napoleon rests in Paris. 

A bill was then introduced in Congress appropriating $35,000 
to reimburse Horace Porter, but when it became known that he 
wished that amount to be added to the appropriation for the 
ornamentation and completion of the crypt, the bill was 
abandoned. The architect's estimate was $100,000 to com- 
plete and ornament the crypt. The figure looks large, but as 



10 ADMIRAL BAIRD. 

they had left the whole basement unfinished, that it might be 
treated in the same style, the figure was not exorbitant. 

But four years had passed, and the crypt had not been 
touched. The item had never been placed in the Navy appro- 
priation bill, but the Secretary of the Navy had recommended 
it not only in his annual reports but in personal letters to 
Congressmen. The President in his last message urged the 
appropriation. 

As soon as I returned from our last Congress at Toledo, I 
reported the exact state of aflfairs to our President General, and 
at once we got busy. I asked a Senator (a member of this 
Society) to get an amendment on the sundry civil bill, which 
had not yet been reported, but it was referred to the wrong 
committee, and availed not. The President General and, in- 
deed, the entire executive committee, all the Presidents of the 
State Societies and scores of individuals S. A. R. compatriots, 
took an earnest interest in it. When Congress convened in 
December, Mr. Loud of Michigan (a compatriot) introduced a 
bill in the House asking $135,000 to complete the crypt, and 
Senator Raynor of Maryland introduced an identical bill in the 
Senate. It went to the Committee on Naval Affairs in each 
house; it was promptly taken up in the Senate, reported one 
day and passed the next. In the House Committee it was 
thought $135,000 seemed large, and after carefully looking into 
the subject that committee, too, reported the bill, but at a 
reduced figure, ($75,000), and the item, now in the Navy bill, 
is under consideration. 

The President General honored our District of Columbia 
Society by selecting a committee of three, all from this Society, 
two of whom were not even delegates, to take steps to secure 
the passage of a bill to provide a suitable memorial to Thomas 
Jefferson, the man who made the original draft for the Declara- 
tion of Independence. I had no difficulty in getting a copy of 
the Act of Congress which had once appropriated this sum, but 
could not find the original bill, nor was there any clue as to 
who had introduced it. My contemporaries on this committee 



ADMIRAL BAIRD. II 

were Compatriots C. C. Magruder and Dr. G. Tully Vaughan. 
We searched diligently and secured the help of that little giant, 
Compatriot Parsons, in the Library of Congress. It was then 
late in the session, and owing to the absence from the city of 
the only remaining Virginia Senator, whose wife was ill, we 
were obliged to wait for the present session of Congress. 
Finally we discovered that there had never been any original 
bill for the purpose, but that Senator Bacon of Georgia had 
gotten the item through Congress as a rider on some other bill, 
so we approached the Senator, who promises to make another 
effort. The money had been once appropriated, but lapsed and 
was covered into the Treasury, as it had not been used. 

An interesting letter from a Massachusetts Society was re- 
ferred to me by the President General which, I think will be 
straightened out. It seems that, in France, since the establish- 
ment of the Republic, the Government has been menaced by 
Royalists, Clericals, ct al., who have organized Societies and 
display insignia on their coats. So the French Government felt 
obliged to issue an order forbidding such display, excepting 
when authorized by the Government. This, our Massachusetts 
friend thought, might interfere with American sojourners there 
who might display a S. A. R. button, I took the matter up 
with the French Embassy, but they were obliged to refer it to 
their Home Office, but assured me that the reply would be 
satisfactory to us. 

Our outing at Annapolis was delightful. There was an ad- 
dress by Compatriot Judge Stockbridge, and one by Compatriot 
Elihu Riley. The Railroad Company provided special cars for 
us, and, owing to the untiring efforts of Compatriot Martin, the 
arrangements for transportation and for subsistence were so 
perfect that nothing was left to be desired. 

At our stated meetings we were entertained by distinguished 
lecturers, and the hall was filled. Compatriot Professor 
Munroe, who is always interesting, was particularly so in his 
discourse on explosives, the handling and use of those danger- 
ous articles, and the chemistry of their components. Com- 



12 ADMIRAL BAIRD. 

patriot McCIung, Treasurer of the United States, who lectured 
to us on the subject of finance and monetary matters, afiforded 
delight and instruction at once. 

Our "Ladies' Night" was the crowning effort of the year, 
and we are again indebted to Compatriot Martin for the com- 
plete arrangements. In the receiving line on that occasion 
there was the President General himself, assisted by the rank- 
ing ladies of the patriotic societies of the city, namely, Mrs. 
General Sternberg, the Vice-President of the Daughters of the 
American Revolution, Mrs. Clark, Hon. Vice-President of the 
Daughters of the American Revolution and of the Children of 
the American Revolution, and myself and my wife. 

The attention of the Board was invited, late in the year, to 
the place which had been assigned the previous New Year's 
Day, in the line of callers at the White House. I took the 
matter up with the Secretary to the President, who has the 
matter in charge, representing that as we are the descendants 
of the men who created the Republic we should be accorded a 
more desirable place in the line than at its tail end. We had 
been behind every organization excepting the Oldest Inhabitants 
of the District of Columbia. It was then so near the first of 
January that there was not time for reconsideration, but, I 
think, if the matter is taken up earlier in the year we may 
expect a better position. 

I desire to express my gratitude to the Society in general for 
the help it has afforded me. There are some individuals who 
have been particularly good to me, as DeCaindry, Martin, 
Spangler, Clark, Lamer, and indeed many others. 

Music forms so important a part of our exercises that I feel 
obliged to refer to it especially. Steps should be taken to 
secure a permanent Organist, and a Precentor. The opening 
exercises at our stated meetings might be improved on. It 
would add so much to the pleasure of the occasion. 

Finally, I beg leave to say that I have enjoyed this year. It 
would be affectation in me to say I am glad to be relieved, be- 
cause the year has been one of unalloyed pleasure. The Presi- 



ADMIRAL BAIRD. I3 

dency of the Society has given me a better chance to do the 
things I wanted to do and a recollection of my efforts will be 
like the music of a summer dream. 

I have not forgotten for a moment that we are the descend- 
ants of the men who created the grandest Government ever 
known ; and, let me say, the closer we adhere to the principles 
laid down by those men the more permanent will be the 
Government and the more satisfied will be the people. 



ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM B. THOMPSON 

Delivered before the Society on assuming the Presidency on 
February 22, 191 1. 

In accepting the gavel from so honorable, able, impartial and 
efficient a predecessor, great responsibility devolves upon me ; 
yet it is hoped and expected that your support will cause me to 
endeavor to emulate his good work. 

To be a member of the Society of the Sons of the American 
Revolution is to give public assurance that one's ancestors 
rendered valuable service to the colonies to secure their free- 
dom and establish the best government on earth. It is our 
especial duty to foster and maintain it; therefore let us honor 
our country and our flag. 

To be elected President of such a Society is an honor which 
is appreciated with sincere thanks. It will be my aim to merit 
the confidence that is reposed; yet, knowing that human en- 
deavor is often weak, I fear it will frequently be necessary to 
beg your indulgence. I have, however, the fullest confidence 
that you will give me credit for good intentions. I feel that 
there will be hearty co-operation from each and every com- 
patriot, to the end that the coming year may be as prosperous 
as those that are numbered with the past. 

There are several committees to be appointed by the Presi- 
dent. He is not prepared to announce them to-day. He re- 
quests your assistance. I would like to have written sugges- 
tions from each compatriot. If any of you are willing to serve, 
or have a preference, do not be too modest to let it be known. 

May I ask each compatriot to give in a list of all eligibles 
within his acquaintance, to the end that an invitation may be 
extended to each one to join the Society? 

Again I thank you. What is your pleasure? 



ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM B. THOMPSON 

Delivered before the Society on retiring from the Presidency on 
February 22, 1912. 

One year ago to-day you conferred upon me the Presidency 
of the District of Columbia Society of the Sons of the Ameri- 
can Revolution, which I assure you was and is appreciated. 

It was my object and aim to show appreciation by works. 
It must, however, be confessed that there has not been as much 
accomplished as I had hoped for, yet the year has not been 
entirely fruitless. 

The Constitution and by-laws required the President of the 
Society to appoint several Committees to serve during the year 
closing this day. Much thought was given in selecting the 
members thereof. Right here and now it is my desire to 
acknowledge my obligation for the splendid work these Com- 
mittes have done, and further to extend my thanks to each and 
every Compatriot for the confidence and support given me with- 
out which my work would have been without results. 

After my election, I attended by invitation, the reception 
given by the Congress of the Daughters of the American Revo- 
lution. Recently, by invitation, I attended as your President, 
a reception given by the President General of the Daughters of 
the American Revolution, and received marked attention by 
reason of being your President. 

The full quota of delegates and alternates for the Louisville 
Congress were elected, but only eight reported present. Your 
delegates were royally entertained, and treated in the Congress 
with all the consideration that could be expected. Col. G. C. 
Kniffin read a paper that received marked attention. 

Admiral Baird stated to the Congress that it was reported 
that the remains of General (Light Horse) Harry Lee were in 
a neglected grave on Cumberland Island, oflf the coast of 
Georgia. He offered a resolution in effect urging that an effort 
be made to re-inter the remains in Arlington on Virginia soil. 



l6 COLONEI, THOMPSON, 

The resolution was adopted and the matter left to Admiral 
Baird. He now informs me that he finds that the grave is not 
neglected, being cared for by Andrew Carnegie ; that the Lee 
family have a family mausoleum at Lexington, Virginia, and 
desire to have the remains placed therein. This matter is in 
the hands of the Admiral, who will report upon it at the Boston 
Congress. 

This Society is one of the largest and should have a full dele- 
gation in the annual Congress, therefore I cannot refrain from 
urging you to elect delegates and alternates who you have 
reason to believe will attend. At the Louisville Congress your 
Society was favored by the selection of the Secretary-General 
and a Vice-President General of the General Society from 
among the membership of this Society, which, to say the least, 
was gratifying. 

I want to remind you that Admiral Baird was instrumental in 
securing an appropriation of $75,000 for a crypt at the Naval 
Academy, at Annapolis, in which the remains of John Paul 
Jones are to be placed. It is my information that plans have 
been made, and that bids have been called for to be opened on 
February 24th. If there be no objection, Admiral Baird will 
be continued as a committee of one to look after this matter 
until it is an accomplished fact, he to report to the Society 
from time to time as he may determine. 

The act making appropriation for the Jefferson Memorial 
passed the Senate through the efforts of Senator Bacon, who 
has it in mind ; and there is reason to believe that he will 
secure the appropriation. 

Our last outing was a moonlight ride on the Potomac and 
was perfectly arranged. The accommodations were ample and 
all that could be desired. The weather was perfect, yet the 
attendance was not large. 

The Society attended the New Year reception at the White 
House. There was a fair attendance, and the Society entered 
next after the Loyal Legion, which followed the Army and 
Navy. 



COLONEL THOMPSON. I7 

January 17, 1912, was "Ladies' Night." Chairman Martin 
and his committee planned and arranged it perfectly. There 
were 363 persons in attendance. The address and music were 
simply fine. The dancing was enjoyed by the younger ones and 
by some who were a little past young. 

Members. 

February 22, 191 1, there were, 526 

Admissions during the year, 47 

Re-instatements during the year, 9 

582 

Resignations during the year, 4 

Transfers during the year, 8 

Deaths during the year, 8 

Dropped during the year, 50 

70 

February 22, 1912, 512 

Thus it will be seen that there are fewer names borne on the 
rolls than one year ago. It is fair to presume that the members 
who were dropped were not active members of the Society, and 
that those now on the rolls are active members and the present 
number more fairly represents the strength of the Society. 

Thanks are due Compatriots Samson, (Chairman), Jones.. 
(Secretary), and the Recruiting Committee, and to all of the 
other Committees, for the splendid work they have done during 
the year. 

In closing allow me to again express my gratitude to each and 
every Compatriot of this Society for his confidence and sup- 
port. 



PAPERS 



HOME-MAKING THROUGH CONSERVATION 

By F. H. NEWELL, 
Director, U. S. Reclamation Service. 

(Read before the Society, March 15, 1911.) 

Before this body of men, who represent the old spirit of 
patriotism and who stand for the preservation of the insti- 
tutions handed down by our fathers, there is nothing which can 
be of much greater interest than this subject of making homes 
throughout the arid West. Conservation has been defined as 
common sense appHed in pubhc affairs. It is simply thrift and 
frugality in making use of materials which otherwise go to 
waste. In the present instance, it is the exercise of these quali- 
ties in that part of the United States which has been considered 
a worthless desert, but which is found to be capable of support- 
ing a large population wherever water can be had and applied 
to the soil. 

The needed waters may be had by control of the floods and 
by carefully saving what otherwise would go to waste. We 
thus have in this form of conservation three distinct operations ; 
first, the utilization of the waste lands; second, the storage of 
the waste waters for use on the lands ; and third, the saving of 
the energies of citizens who would otherwise toil fruitlessly 
without acquiring a permanent home or a worthy place in the 
functions of the State. 

As is well known, fully one-third of the United States is arid 
and the soil cannot produce useful crops unless artificially 
watered. Deficiency of rainfall is a necessary consequence of 
the almost continuous daily sunshine, the source of all life and 
vigor. Thus it follows that where water can be supplied in 
proper times and quantities the growth of the plants is at the 
best. We have a national problem, that of rendering habitable 
a large part of our country, a problem which cannot be left to 
the States to settle, as the water supply is mainly interstate and 



22 HOME-MAKING. 

the development of the public lands rests largely upon the 
control of the waters within one State for the benefit of an- 
other. 

Nearly all of the area of the United States, outside of that 
of the 13 original States and of Texas, belonged to the people 
of the United States, and was at the disposal of Congress. 
The laws framed for its disposal were originally upon the 
assumption of humid conditions. The methods of land sur- 
vey, and subdivision, the requirements of residence and culti- 
vation, were all based upon this conception. As the lands were 
taken up progressively from east to west, the settlers en- 
croached further and further upon the sub-humid, the semi- 
arid, and finally upon the truly arid regions. It was found 
that the land laws which were admirable for the Ohio and 
Mississippi Valleys were entirely unsuited for the arid con- 
ditions of the Rocky Mountain regions. 

A struggle arose between the natural requirements and those 
artificially imposed by legislation. The growing population of 
the United States must have homes, and the industries which 
could be carried on within the arid region required possession 
of the lands. They could not be homesteaded or taken up with 
full compliance with the letter and spirit of laws which were 
adapted to the humid east, and yet they must be obtained in 
some way. Hence arose a systematic and widespread evasion 
of the letter of the law, based upon the common needs of the 
people, the legislation required to fit the conditions being nearly 
a generation behind the actual pressing needs. In the mean- 
time, vast tracts of public domain passed into the hands of 
cattle men and lumbermen, through shadowy compliance on the 
part of their employes with the requirements of residence and 
cultivation. 

The tardy development or adaptation of the land laws was 
accompanied by an equally unsatisfactory growth of laws 
governing the distribution and control of water needed for the 
irrigation of the dry lands. The States having semi-arid land 
naturally adopted the laws of their sister States to the east. 



HOME-MAKING. 23 

These in turn have been modeled upon the common law of 
England, a humid country where there is water enough and to 
spare for every common need. 

The theory of the water laws was that the natural streams 
should be permitted to flow undiminished in quantity and un- 
changed in quality, each landowner bordering upon the stream 
(or riparian proprietor) having the right to enjoy the use of the 
stream within these requirements. In the arid region, however, 
this was obviously impossible as the very conditions of life 
demanded that water be taken from the natural streams and 
utilized or consumed in the production of crops without return 
to the water course. Recognition of this fact has been slow, 
and in some States of the west the riparian doctrines of the 
east were adopted at least in part or embodied in court de- 
cisions, while in other States there was general recognition of 
the doctrine of appropriation limited by beneficial use of water, 
but coupled with conditions which rendered difificult the ascer- 
tainment of the rights. 

Many of the lawyers and judges coming from humid States 
could not at first adjust their ideas to the conditions new to 
them. There has resulted much uncertainty as to the law and 
its application, so that it has been claimed that in many of the 
States the amount expended in litigation over the rights to the 
use of water has exceeded the cost of construction of the works. 
In California, for example, there has been great confusion in 
such matters. The State is very large, and embraces humid 
regions where there is ample rainfall and also arid areas with 
great deserts where life is impossible without an artificial sup- 
ply of water. There, the Spanish-speaking people introduced 
the idea of appropriation and diversion of the streams, while the 
English-speaking men, coming from the humid east, adopted 
laws based upon the riparian conceptions. Thus, there fol- 
fowed contradictory decisions, some based on the common re- 
quirement of the arid portion of the States, others on the pre- 
cedents established in England and in the eastern States, with 



24 HOME-MAKING. 

resulting confusion as to the protection which may be accorded 
to the waters diverted for the development of the arid lands. 

The ideal system of controlling irrigation water is that where 
the State through the exercise of its police power provides a 
method by which the quantity of water flowing in the various 
streams may be ascertained and the claims to this water may be 
recorded in systematic order, each claim being limited to the 
amount necessary for the purpose to which it is devoted. The 
fundamental doctrine is that embodied in the Reclamation or 
Newlands act of June 17, 1902 — "that the right to the use of 
water ''' * * shall be appurtenant to the land irrigated, 
and beneficial use shall be the basis, the measure, and the limit 
of the right." 

This conception is being slowly crystallized into law in the 
various States. Even in California, there appears to be a 
tendency to limit the riparian rights to the amount of water 
which has been put to beneficial use by the riparian claimants. 

The question as to the control of water as between different 
States is one which has yet to be settled. Within the bounds of 
each State, it is practicable for that State, through its courts or 
executive machinery, to distribute the water to rival claimants 
in the order of priority, and with consideration of beneficial use. 
Where a river crosses State lines and several communities are 
concerned, it is evident that the power of the State ceases. It 
has been customary to assume that the upstream State will take 
all of the water it can without regard to the needs of the com- 
munities down stream, and that appeal may be made by the 
persons injured to the courts of the United States; but as yet 
there have been no decisions of the Supreme Court settling the 
many important questions which may arise. 

The United States as the original proprietor of all of the arid 
lands was also owner of the streams arising in or among them. 
It is still the owner of from half to three-quarters of the area 
of many of the arid States, and is the greatest landed proprietor 
in them. This ownership includes the national forests from 
which arise most of the rivers used in irrigation and water 



HOME-MAKING. 25 

power; and it is claimed that this and the ownership of the 
gathering ground of the streams give it certain rights of con- 
trol of the waters issuing from the public land area. 

On the other hand, when the newer States were created, the 
United States recognized in each the fact that the waters of the 
State belonged to the people and that the State had the duty of 
apportioning these waters among the rival claimants. The 
United States also provided in various laws that title to the land 
can pass to the entryman after he had made proof of the re- 
clamation of his farm. To do this, the claimant must take 
away from the stream the waters which are needed for this pur- 
pose. 

When it became evident that the vast areas of the arid West 
could not be put to their best uses without irrigation and after 
settlement had already been begun by construction of many 
small canals leading water by gravity from the streams, a law 
was passed known as the Desert Land act (March 3, 1871) pro- 
viding for the sale of desert lands in States and territories. 

Under the operation of this law, and its amendments, up- 
wards of 20,000,000 acres have been entered, and of this about 
5,000,000 have passed to patent. The law originally permitted 
each claimant to take 640 acres, but this area was afterwards 
reduced to 320. It was found, however, that after the small 
and easily constructed irrigation canals had been built, it was 
not possible for the owners of separate small tracts of arid lands 
to get together and raise the necessary capital to build larger 
works. Out of this consideration came what is known as the 
Carey act of August 18, 1889, which provides that, to aid the 
public land States in the reclamation of desert lands in the 
settlement, cultivation and sale in small tracts to actual settlers, 
the Secretary of the Interior upon application from a State can 
contract to donate to the State, free of cost, not exceeding a 
million acres of desert land, as the State may cause to be irri- 
gated and reclaimed, and not less than 20 acres out of each 160 
acres to be cultivated by actual settlers. 

The States were somewhat slow in accepting the provisions of 



26 HOME-MAKING. 

this act, and the ten-year Hmit within which they might receive 
the land was extended by act of March 3, 1901. On February 
18, 1909, the provisions were extended to the territories of 
New Mexico and Arizona. In some of the States, notably 
Idaho and Wyoming, there has been rapid development vmder 
the terms of this act, this being promoted by State laws govern- 
ing the use and control of the water, and being consequent upon 
the extraordinary natural advantages in these States. Where 
the acceptance of the act was dilatory or the State laws inade- 
quate, the results have not been beneficial, and large amounts 
of money have been lost or wasted in speculative schemes. 

It became apparent that the largest development of the arid 
regions could not be accomplished either through the desert 
land act, which made provision for individual energy, or 
through the Carey act, which permitted the States to enter the 
field of development. It was found that there were many 
localities where interstate or international problems were in- 
volved, or where the first cost made the work prohibitory. In 
recognition of this, there was passed on June 17, 1902, what is 
known as the Reclamation or Newlands act, which provides a 
sum of money to be expended directly by the Government in 
the "reclaiming of arid lands. The money is that obtained from 
the disposal of public lands in the western States. This has 
amounted (1911) to upwards of $60,000,000, and it has been 
expended by the Secretary of the Interior in the construction of 
large reservoirs, canals, and other works, for irrigation of arid 
lands. The water provided by storage of floods is disposed of 
to the owners of small tracts, the area being limited to the 
amount necessary for the support of a family, and in no case 
to exceed 160 acres. The public lands which are reclaimed are 
not sold but are given away to homestead entrymen on con- 
dition of five-years' residence. The estimated cost of the water 
however, must be repaid in not to exceed ten annual instal- 
ments. This is usually about $40 per acre, or $4 per year for 
ten years. 

The Newlands act is the fruition of the ideal of conservation 



HOME-MAKING, 27 

initiated largely by the energies of Major John Wesley Powell, 
for many years Director of the U. S. Geological Survey, and 
which were crystallized into effective laws and organizations 
by Theodore Roosevelt, and his intimate friend and assistant, 
Gifford Pinchot. In a large way, this policy involves the pro- 
tection of the forests upon the mountain areas for the purpose 
not merely of supplying timber, but for the beneficial influence 
upon the streams. It also includes the building within the 
mountain valleys and elsewhere of the large reservoirs for hold- 
ing the floods until a time when the waters are needed for irri- 
gation, water power, or other uses. 

In addition to the funds which are being derived from the 
disposal of public lands, and those which are coming back from 
the construction of works, it has been proposed to extend the 
work by the issue of bonds, and authority has been granted to 
dispose of $20,000,000. None of this, however, has yet been 
needed, as the money in hand appears to be ample to carry out 
the approved plans for the years 191 1 and 1912. 

Already over 10,000 families are being supplied with water, 
a million acres have been reclaimed and works under way for 
bringing water to a total of about three million acres. There 
are also tentative plans looking to the construction of still 
larger works whenever funds become available. 

The outcome is that, if this work is continued and the funds 
invested in such work are returned by the beneficiaries, there 
will be a continually increasing development and larger and 
larger areas of land otherwise useless will be converted into 
highly productive areas capable of supporting a large popu- 
lation. 

The primary object of the law, while that of reclaiming the 
land, includes a far higher benefit, namely, that of making op- 
portunities for citizens to secure small farms and homes wliere, 
as independent landowners and taxpayers, they become the most 
valuable support of the commonwealth. 

It is not the material prosperity of these citizens in which we 
are so much interested, as it is the indirect results upon the wel- 



28 HOME-MAKING. 

fare of the nation. Every wage-earner who is taken from the 
congested centers of population and placed upon a piece of 
land which he may own and where he may support himself and 
his family, becomes a factor in the stability of the Republic. 
Without this ownership of real property, he is tempted to 
wander from place to place, he has no settled habitation, and 
seeks work where it may be had, having no interest in the laws 
or institutions of the locality or of the State. 

A wonderful transformation, however, takes place the 
moment that he becomes the landowner, real or in prospect. 
He at once feels a responsibility which arises from a proprietor- 
ship in the soil, and is ready to follow the example of his fore- 
fathers, or of the men who fought throughout the American 
Revolution in defending his home and farm against aggression. 
This condition has been well stated in a phrase attributed to 
Edward Everett Hale, "Whoever heard of a man shouldering 
his musket to fight for his boarding house?" 



THE ISLAND OF GUAM 

By WILLIAM EDWIN SAFFORD, 
Late Lieutenant, U. S. Navy. 

(Read before the Society, April 19, 191 1.) 

The fame of Christopher Columbus is world wide. His 
name will always be associated with the whole continent of 
America. Fernando Magellan, on the contrary, is known to 
most men only as the discoverer of the strait which bears 
his name. Yet the feat of Columbus in crossing the narrow 
Atlantic Ocean from the already known Canary Islands to 
the Bahamas becomes insignificant when compared with Magel- 
lan's voyage across the unknown waters of the vast Pacific, 
in the face of protests, mutiny, and terrible hardships. 

The story of Magellan's voyage reads like a passage from 
the Odyssey. The historian tells how the supply of food di- 
minished until there were left only a few wormy biscuits 
all foul with the excrement of rats ; how the rats themselves 
were eagerly sought for for food, and became so scarce that 
each one sold for half a crown; how, to ease the pangs of hun- 
ger, the sailors filled their stomachs with sawdust ; and remov- 
ing the stiff leather to protect the rigging from chafing, they 
softened it in sea-water and then broiled it a little on hot coals 
as a substitute for meat. Then, the chronicle states, the water on 
board became yellow and offensive, and the gums of the men 
were swollen with scurvey, "so that many died and more 
were stricken down with divers sicknesses in their arms and 
legs and other parts, until few whole men were left." In 
this desperate plight they continued across the mysterious ocean 
for three months and twenty days, eagerly watching for signs 
of land. At last an island was sighted, and as they drew 
near it a fleet of wonderful little vessels came out to meet 
them — flying praos they were called by early navigators — 
with triangular sails and parallel out-riggers. As they came 



30 GUAM. 

skipping from wave to wave into the very eye of the wind 
they were a marvel to all who beheld them. 

The brown-skinned islanders with their straight glossy 
hair and regular features were not ill-looking. They were 
merry, roguish people full of mischief and practical jokes but 
not vicious nor cruel. One of the small boats which trailed 
astern of the flagship was found to be missing, whereupon the 
Captain-General himself landed with forty armed men, burned 
forty or fifty houses and many boats ; and killed several natives, 
both men and women ; after which he made sail and continued 
his course westward. 

"Before going ashore," says the chronicle, '"some of our sick people 
said that, if we should kill any of the islanders, whether man or woman, 
they would like us to bring their entrails on board ; for they were sure 
that these would cure their maladies. When we wounded some of the 
natives with arrows which pierced through their bodies, they would 
try to pull out the arrow first in one direction and then in another, 
regarding it in the meantime with great wonder ; and thus did they 
who were wounded in the breast, and they died of their wounds, which 
did not fail to excite our pity. Seeing us make sail, they followed 
us with more than a hundred boats for more than a league, and 
approaching our ships they showed us fish, making signs that they 
wished to give them to us; but when they were close they slung 
stones at us and fled away. We passed under full sail through the 
midst of their boats, but they got out of our way with the greatest 
skill. Among them we saw some women who were weeping and tear- 
ing their hair. Surely it must have been for their husbands who had 
been killed by us." 

This was the first experience of the natives of Guam with 
Europeans; it was only an index to the cruel treatment they 
were to receive in after years, not only from the Spaniards but 
from representatives of other civilized nations as well. One of 
the most glaring cases is that of the English buccaneers Eaton 
and Cowley, who visited the island in 1685. A record of their 
cruelty has been left by Cowley himself, w^ho tells the tale in his 
personal narrative. The Englishmen were given carte blanche 
by the Spanish governor of the island to kill as many natives 
as they pleased, and they seemed glad to engage in the sport. 



GUAM. 31 

Suspecting that the natives were trying to possess themselves 
of one of their boats which was fishing on the reef, they opened 
fire upon the islanders. Some of the Englishmen who were on 
shore meeting a party of natives, saluted them, according to 
the narrative, "by making holes in their hides." 

"We took four of these infidels prisoners and brought them on 
board, binding their hands behind them," says the pious Cowley; 
"but they had not been long there when three of them leaped over- 
board into the sea, swimming away from the ship with their hands 
tied behind them. However, we sent a boat after them, and found 
that a strong man at the first blow could not penetrate their skins 
with a cutJass. One of them had received in my judgment forty 
shots in his body before he died; and the last of the three that was 
killed had swam a good English mile first, not only with his hands 
behind him, as before, but also with his arms pinioned." 

The natives of Guam and the adjacent islands were given 
the name of ladrones, or "thieves," by European free-booters, 
who were themselves professional robbers, and who did not 
scruple to steal husbands from their wives and fathers from 
their little ones. The islanders were described by the early 
Spaniards as lazy and improvident, living only for pleasure ; 
yet the same writers tell of the comfortable houses they con- 
structed for their families ; of their skillfully fashioned boats ; 
and the quantities of rice they cultivated, harvested, and stored 
for future consumption. They were branded as idolaters ; yet 
they never made graven images, nor did they offer up bloody 
sacrifices like the ancient Mexicans and Hawaiians ; though 
they venerated the relics of their dead and considered them 
efficacious in warfare, carrying them to battle very much in the 
same spirit as the Catholic Spaniards carried the cross. 

I found much information relating to the early history of the 
island of Guam in an old vellum-covered work by Francisco 
Garcia, containing the reports of the early Jesuit missionaries 
on the island, published at Madrid in 1683, and entitled "The 
life and martyrdom of the venerable Father Diego Luis de 
Sanvitores of the Company of Jesus, first Apostle of the 
Mariana Islands, and the happenings on those islands from the 



32 GUAM. 

year 1668 to 1681." It tells the story of a zealous missionary 
who realized his hope of martyrdom among the people whose 
souls he had gone to save. Sanvitores was received with great 
kindness by the natives, who built for him a home, and at first 
seemed disposed to accept all that he might teach them. But 
in consequence of his administering the sacrament to certain 
old people on the point of death and the failure of them to 
respond to what the natives thought was medicine intended for 
their cure, they lost faith in him, and listening to the insinu- 
ations of a certain Chinaman who had taken up his residence 
on the island, they declared that baptism was pernicious and 
that it caused death of both old and young. Naturally it was 
impossible for the good padre to explain the doctrines of the 
Church to these simple-minded people whose language he 
understood but imperfectly. 

One cannot help being touched by the zeal shown by the 
missionaries in their efiforts to convert the natives. Sometimes, 
when the latter showed indifference, one of the fathers would 
suddenly rise and begin to dance "like David before the Ark of 
the Covenant," and gaily sing : 

"Alegria, alegria, alegria ! 
Buena, buena, buena Jesus Maria ! 
Nuestra alegria, Jesus y Maria ! 

Amen, Amen. 
Jesus, Maria y Joseph !" 

In imitation of the songs of the natives he would repeat these 
words to the rhythm of clapping hands, and the people round 
about him, catching the inspiration, would fall to dancing with 
him. 

In the northern extremity of the island, now uninhabited but 
at that time occupied by several villages, the natives plied them- 
selves diligently to the study of the Christian Doctrine. The 
children of Ritidyan and Tarragui showed themselves especially 
apt scholars. Occasionally the padres would arrange a con- 
test between two villages. A solemn procession would be 
formed, with the banner of the Doctrine at the head, the boys 



GUAM. 33 

following on one side and the girls on the other, and after them 
the men and the women in the same order. The children, 
dressed in white, would wear wreaths of flowers on their heads 
and carry palm-leaves in their hands ; and as they marched 
along they recited prayers and sang sacred songs "with such 
modesty and composure that they seemed a procession of 
angels." And indeed the description suggests a scene in some 
picture of Fra Angelico. On arriving at the other village the 
padre of that residence would come forth to meet them with 
like procession and ceremony. Then a "contest of prayers and 
mysteries" would be held in an open place and prizes would be 
awarded by the padres, who acted as judges. Then the child- 
ren would 

"engage in decent sports, returning well pleased to their village, wish- 
ing for another day of contest, so that those who had not won dis- 
tinction might seek satisfaction later. Of these and other holy devices 
the ministers of the gospel availed themselves so as to facilitate the 
instruction of these poor islanders." 

Sanvitores was killed by a chief named Matapang for baptiz- 
ing the little son of the latter after having been warned not to 
do so. Shortly before his death he succeeded in enlisting the 
interest of the Queen of Spain in behalf of the natives, and she 
endowed the island with a perpetual fund for their education 
and conversion. 

This lady, Maria Anna of Austria, is known to the world 
chiefly by her portraits painted by Velasquez. She has also 
been immortalized by Calderon, who describes her coming from 
Austria to Spain to wed her uncle Philip IV ; and Edward 
Fitzgerald has translated the description into English, perhaps 
more beautiful than the original, telling how the "royal rose of 
Spain's own stock, who scarce had drunk the dawns of four- 
teen Aprils," had come across the waters in the royal barge, 
manned by a crew dressed in wedding pearl and silver, its 
silken sail and cordage fluttering with streamers of every color, 
and its escort of forty vessels resembling a moving city 
majestically entering the Spanish main ; and he congratulates 



34 GUAM. 

the golden strand that received the imprint of the royal foot 
when the radiant young girl first stepped upon the soil of Spain. 

But there is not space here to describe the fetes given in 
honor of the wedding, the resplendent bull ring, and the cere- 
mon}' of coronation, when the august monarch laid at the feet 
of his bride two empires, and crowned her thrice, as niece, and 
spouse, and queen. This is the Maria Anna whose memory has 
been handed down to posterity. To the natives of Guam she is 
the godmother of their dear island, almost their patron saint ; 
and in her honor the group was called the Islas Marianas, just 
as the Filipinas were named for Felipe II. As long as she lived 
she was the protector of the islanders, and after her death even 
until the islands were seized by our own country they enjoyed 
the benefits of her endowment. 

The Jesuits remained on the island of Guam a hundred years, 
and, though their methods were sometimes severe, they suc- 
ceeded in winning the love and confidence of the natives, whom 
they were often called upon to protect against the oppression 
of the military authorities sent to govern them. For though 
some of the Spanish governors were kind and just, others were 
cruel and selfish, monopolizing all trade with visiting vessels, 
and forcing the natives to work for them without recompense. 
If the natives were ofifended at the destruction of some of the 
relics of their ancestors and remained away from church, the 
governors would try to force their attendance at mass. Some- 
times trouble would be caused by the performance of a mar- 
riage ceremony between a Spaniard and a native girl, in op- 
position to the wishes of her parents, who adhered to their 
ancient customs. This would perhaps lead to bloodshed, and a 
whole village would be punished for the offense of an indi- 
vidual. Sometimes the Spaniards would run out of ammu- 
nition and declare peace. This would usually last only until 
the arrival of a vessel with a fresh supply, and hostilities 
would be renewed, though in the meantime the natives might 
have given no further cause for complaint. The reports of the 
Spaniards themselves record atrocious acts of barbarity. On 



GUAM. 35 

one occasion a vessel arrived and in it a certain over-zealous 
officer who marched by night at the head of a squad of soldiers 
to a certain village and shot into the houses of the sleeping 
people. Another story is told of a newly arrived soldier who 
shot the first native he saw, for no other reason than that the 
native, frightened at the sight of a stranger, had started to run 
away. The missionaries expressed their disapproval of such 
acts as these, which they characterized as ''excesses of ardor;" 
not because of their cruelty, but because they "placed in jeo- 
pardy all Christianity," causing the natives to retire from the 
villages near the seat of government to others more distant. 
They were afraid that the islanders would combine together 
against the Spanish officials and the padres, "as against homi- 
cides, who, the ones with baptism (as many natives already 
said) and the others with weapons, came to take the lives of 
themselves and their children." 

The aboriginal inhabitants were described by the early navi- 
gators and missionaries as people of the stature of the Euro- 
peans. They were lighter in color than the Filipinos, and the 
women and children were fairer than the men. At the time of 
the discovery the men wore their hair loose or coiled in a knot 
on top of the head. Later they were described as shaving the 
head, with the exception of a crest about a finger long, which 
they left on the crown. Some of them were bearded. Piga- 
fetta says that they were well formed, and by the report of the 
early missionaries they were said to be more corpulent and 
robust than the Europeans, with a tendency to obesity. They 
were remarkably free from disease and physical defects, and 
lived to a great age. Among those baptized the first year by 
the missionaries there were more than 120 said to be past the 
age of 100 years. Their hair was naturally jet black, and in 
early times was worn so long by the women as to touch the 
ground. The men wore no clothing, and the only covering 
of the women was a small apron-like garment made of the 
inner bark of a tree. The women were handsome, and more 
delicate in figure than the men. They did not work in the 



36 GUAM. 

fields, but occupied themselves in weaving baskets, mats, and 
hats of pandanus leaves, and doing other necessary work about 
the house. 

In their general appearance, language, and customs the people 
of Guam bore a resemblance to the Tagalos and Visayans of 
the Philippine Islands. The vocabulary, however, was distinct, 
but contained many primitive words of Malayan affinity widely 
spread over the Pacific (such, for instance, as the names of sky, 
fowl, fire and sea). Their grammatical forms were dif- 
ferent from those of the Polynesians, tenses being expressed 
by the reduplication of syllables and the insertion and pre- 
fixing of particles, as in Philippine dialects. 

Before marriage it was customary for young men to live in 
concubinage with girls, whom* they purchased from their 
parents by presents. Frequently a number of young men and 
young girls would live together in a large public, 
house, as is the custom among the Igorrotes of Litzon. After 
marriage a husband contented himself with one wife, and a 
wife with one husband, at a time. Divorces were frequent, the 
children and the household property always going with the 
wife. The most frequent cause of divorce was jealousy. If 
a woman discovered her husband to be unfaithful, she called 
together the other women of the village, who armed themselves 
with spears and proceeded to the house of the offender. They 
would then destroy any growing crops he might own and 
menace him with the spears until he was forced to flee from 
the house. Then they took possession of everything they could 
find, and sometimes even destroyed the house itself. When a 
wife was unfaithful, the husband had a right to chastise her 
paramour, but she went free from punishment. 

Caste distinctions were recognized and very strictly ob- 
served. The chiefs, called chamorris, owned vast plantations 
and cocoanut groves, which were handed down generation 
after generation to the heirs. A chief's rightful successor was 
his brother or his nephew, who, on coming into possession of 



GUAM. 37 

the family estate, changed his name to that of the chief ances- 
tor of the family. 

The people were naturally superstitious. They venerated 
the bones of their ancestors, keeping the skulls in their houses 
in" small baskets, and practicing incantations before them 
when it was desired to attain certain objects. The spirits of 
the dead were called aniti, and were supposed to dwell in the 
forests, often visiting the villages, causing bad dreams and hav- 
ing especial sway over the fisheries. People dying a violent 
death went to a place called Zazarragtian, or the house of 
Chayfi, where they suffered torture from fire and incessant 
blows. Those dying a natural death went to a subterranean 
paradise where there were groves of cocoanuts, plantations of 
bananas, sugar cane, and other fruits in abundance. Certain 
men called makahna resembled the kahunas of the Hawaiians. 
They were supposed to have power over the health of the 
natives, could cause rain, and bring luck to the fishermen. As 
among many Indian, Malayan, and Polynesian peoples, they 
were very careful not to spit near the house of another, un- 
doubtedly through fear of sorcery, should an enemy possess 
himself of the spittle. 

Violent grief was shown on the death of a friend or relative, 
the people wailing and singing dirges expressive of their sor- 
row and despair, and recounting the noble qualities of the 
dead. In the case of a chamorri's death the wailing was pro- 
longed for several days. Small mounds were raised over the 
grave and were decorated with flowers, palm leaves, canoe 
paddles if the deceased was a fisherman, spears if he was a 
warrior. The body was sometimes anointed with fragrant oil 
and taken in procession from the house, as though to allow 
the spirit an opportunity of choosing an abiding place among 
the homes of its kindred. 

On occasions of festivity the men and women would collect 
in groups, each by themselves, and, forming semi-circles, sing 
and chant their legends and fables. Sometimes these songs 
would be in three part harmony, "treble, contralto, and fal- 



38 GUAM. 

setto." The songs were accompanied by appropriate gestures 
and movements of the body, the women using certain rattles 
and castanets made of shells. On these occasions the women 
adorned their foreheads with wreaths of flowers like jasmines, 
and wore belts of shell and bands from which hung disks of 
tortoise shell, which was much prized among them. They 
wore skirts of fringe-like roots, which the early missionaries 
declared to be "rather like cages than garments." 

Though called ladrones (thieves), the natives were so honest 
that their houses were left open without protection, and 
very seldom was anything found missing. They were very 
hospitable and kind, as all the early accounts testify. It was 
not until they were given just cause that their attitude towards 
the Spanish changed, whereupon the latter declared that they 
had been mistaken in attributing virtues to them. 

The natives declared that the foreigners brought to the 
islands rats, flies, mosquitoes, and strange diseases. They lived 
with little restraint, the matters of importance to the village 
or to the general public being decided by the assemblies of 
their chiefs and old men ; but these had little authority, and a 
native did pretty much as he pleased unless prevented by some- 
one stronger than himself. 

Their arms were wooden spears pointed with bones, and 
slings with which they threw oval-shaped stones with remark- 
able force and accuracy. Their houses were well made, raised 
on wooden posts or pillars of stone, and thatched with palm 
leaves. Their boats were kept under shelter when not in use, 
large sheds being constructed for them near the sea, the 
masonr}' pillars supporting which may still be seen. It has been 
asserted that they were ignorant of fire, but that this is a mis- 
take is easily shown, not only by the fact that their principal 
food-staples must be cooked, but also the words for fire, ashes, 
cooking, etc., are purely Polynesian, and could not have been 
independently invented after the arrival of Europeans. They 
ate fish, fowls, rice, breadfruit, taro, yams, bananas, cocoa- 
nuts, and cycas nuts called fadang. The latter, which are 



GUAM, 39 

poisonous, they soaked until all the harmful properties were 
eliminated, and then dried and stored them. For relishes they 
ate certain seaweeds and Terminalia nuts. Though they had 
pigs at a very early date it is probable that these were intro- 
duced after the discovery ; since the early navigators who visit- 
ed Guam declared that the natives could not be induced to eat 
flesh. The creamy custard expressed from the grated meat of 
ripe cocoanuts entered into the composition of several of their 
dishes. They cooked by means of heated stones in a heated 
pit, very much after the method used by the modern Polyne- 
sians. The kava pepper (Piper methysticuni) was unknown to 
them, but its place was taken by the betel pepper, the leaves 
of which they chewed wrapped around a fragment of the nut 
of the Areca palm with an added pinch of lime. This habit is 
still universal among the natives of Guam. The betel thus pre- 
pared has an agreeable aromatic pungency, not unlike that of 
nutmeg. It imparts a fragrance to the breath, which is not 
disagreeable, but it discolors the teeth in time and causes them 
to crumble away, while the constant expectoration of saliva, 
red like blood, is a disagreeable habit. 

The principal plants cultivated by the natives before the dis- 
covery were the breadfruit — a sterile form of Artocarpus 
communis, which is propagated by cuttings, or sprouts from 
the roots ; the diigdug, or fertile form of the same species, 
which also grew wild upon the island, yielding an edible, chest- 
nut-like seed, logs from which they made their largest canoes, 
bark for their aprons or loin cloths, and gum which served as 
a medium for mixing their paints and as a resin for paying the 
seams of their canoes ; the betel palm (Areca catechu) and the 
betel pepper (Piper hetle), which were undoubtedly brought 
to the island in prehistoric times, as also were rice, sugar cane, 
and the species of Pandanus called aggak, from the leaves of 
which they made their mats, baskets, hats, and boat sails. Of 
this plant only one sex occurs on the island, and it must con- 
sequently be propagated by cuttings. Cocoanuts were also, in 
all probability, brought hither, as were several varieties of 



40 GUAM. 

yams (Dioscorea alata and D. acnlcata), separated by them 
into two groups, which, according to the shape of the leaf, they 
call nika and dago. A third species, (Dioscorea spinosa) called 
gado, which now grows wild in thickets, is characterized by 
sharp, wiry, branching thorns near the ground, which serve to 
protect its starchy tubers from wild hogs. Several varieties 
of taro were cultivated, both in swampy places and on dry 
hillsides. Among the less important plants were the Polynesian 
arrowroot, called gabgab (Tacca pinnatifida) ; turmeric (Cur- 
cuma longa), called mango ; wild ginger or ashgod halom-tano ; 
and a species of red pepper, called doni. There were no edible 
oranges, mangoes, mangosteens, nor loquats. A fruit much 
relished by the fruit-eating pigeons was the piod (Ximenia 
americana) , which resembles a small yellow plum with a slight 
flavor of bitter almond. 

For growing taro little art is required. Yams require more 
care; while bananas, breadfruit, and the textile pandanus, pro- 
pagated by cuttings or sprouts, have to be severed from the 
parent stock, stuck into the ground, and occasionally watered. 
For the cultivation of rice — the only cereal of the aborigines — 
far greater skill is necessary on account of the prepara- 
tion of the fields and the construction of irrigating ditches. 
Rice was the principal staple furnished to vessels in consider- 
able quantity. 

The principal plants introduced by the missionaries were 
maize, or Indian corn, tobacco, oranges, lemons, limes, pine- 
apples, cashew nuts, or marafiones. peanuts, tgg plants, toma- 
toes, and several species of Annona, besides a number of leg- 
uminous vegetables and garden herbs. 

With maize, the chief article of cultivation, came the Mex- 
ican metatl and mano for making tortillas. Tobacco leaves 
were used for paying the natives for their work. Most of the 
sweet potatoes grown were sold to ships, the natives contenting 
themselves with yams and taro. or breadfruit. Among the 
medicinal plants brought from Mexico was Cassia alata, which 
is still called "acapulco;" and Pithecolobium dulce, called 



GUAM. 41 

"Kamachilis," was brought for the sake of its bark, which is 
used in tanning. Coffee and cacao were introduced later. 

The annual reports of the missionaries record the flight of 
the natives from island to island, pursued by the Spaniards 
armed with arquebuses, and having only simple slings and 
spears for their defense ; of their capture and forced recon- 
centration on the island of Guam, where they were huddled 
together and died like sheep from an epidemic ; and of their 
almost complete extermination. After their spirit had been 
broken and peace had been established no further difficulties 
were encountered in converting them. The Jesuits, who earn- 
estly desired to benefit them, established several fine farms on 
the island for agricultural and stock breeding purposes. They 
introduced many new fruits and vegetables and taught the 
natives many useful arts. When they were finally banished, 
by decree of Carlos III, the natives followed them in tears to 
the port where they embarked. They were carried to Manila 
on schooner called "Our Lady of Guadalupe," which sailed 
from Guam, November 2, 1769. The order of Recoleto Augus- 
tinian Friars which took their place, though including many 
good and holy men, had also some representatives on the island 
whose influence and example were not for the good of the 
natives. It has been asserted of Guam as of Porto Rico and 
other Spanish islands that sometimes friars found guilty of 
misdemeanors were sent there as punishment instead of being 
dropped from their order. When the United States took pos- 
session of the island the Recoletos were in their turn expelled 
from the island ; not on account of any feeling of enmity toward 
the Catholic Church, but because the governor thought the ex- 
ample of the friars was bad. Father Jose Palomo, the venerable 
native priest, descendant from Don Luis de Torres, who was a 
friend of Chamisso, Kotzebue, De Freycinet, and other early 
navigators, has had the respect and friendship of all the Amer- 
ican governors in succession, and, in appreciation of his intrinsic 
worth and pious zeal for the welfare of the people under his 
charge, he has been created a monsignor by the Pope. 



42 GUAM. 

The story of the seizure of the defenseless Httle island by 
the U. S. S. Charleston on June 20, 1898, has been told so often 
that it need only be referred to here. As the seizure was made 
by a man-of-war without assistance from the Army, the island 
has ever since been regarded as the exclusive property of the 
Navy, and its governor has always been a naval officer. 

For a little more than a year the island remained without a 
regularly organized government, various naval officers at- 
tached to visiting vessels assuming command of the island in 
succession. Finally Captain Richard P. Leary was appointed 
governor of the island, and I, who was then a lieutenant in the 
U. S. Navy, was ordered to the island as his chief executive. 
Arriving on the morning of August 13, 1899, I found the sta- 
tion ship Yosemite at anchor in the harbor of San Luis de Apra, 
with the governor on board. I was ordered to take up my resi- 
dence on shore at once and to relieve the acting governor at 
Agaha. This man was a half-white Samoan, son of an old 
sea captain whom I had known years before in Samoa. I had 
the advantage of speaking Spanish and had for years been 
interested in the ethnology and comparative philology of the 
Pacific islanders and in the problems relating to their origin and 
migrations ; so that I was not sorry to spend a year on the 
island in studying the people and their language. During my 
residence there I was able to collect sufficient informa- 
tion for the preparation of papers on the ethnology of the is- 
land, afterwards published in the American Anthropologist, and 
by the Smithsonian Institution ; a history of the island published 
in the introduction to my "Useful Plants of the Island of 
Guam," and a complete grammar of the Chamorro language, 
as the idiom of the aborigenes is called. 

The governor remained on the Yosemite pending certain re- 
pairs to the palace, or government house, directing me to take 
up my residence at Agana, the capital, and to act as his repre- 
sentative in all matters pertaining to the administration of 
island afifairs. He said that he did not wish to be consulted 
about the details of government unless it was absolutely neces- 



GUAM. 43 

sary, and he proceeded to appoint me judge of the first instance, 
registrar of property, and auditor of the island treasury. I felt 
that considerable responsibility was thrust upon me, and I real- 
ized that I knew little law and was by no means an expert ac- 
countant ; but I determined to do my best and to be as helpful as 
possible not only to my own government but to the people whom 
I found under my jurisdiction. I provided myself with the 
various Spanish codes of law in force in the island — civil, penal, 
and commercial — fat little volumes like prayer books, and set 
to work to make myself a judge. When I encountered any very 
perplexing problem I had recourse to the venerable Father 
Palomo, a man of sterling worth, fine education, and excellent 
judgment, whom I named my "Richelieu." I installed myself 
first in one of the administration buildings, but shortly after- 
wards I bought a residence for myself, a pretty little tile-roofed 
house of masonry with a garden attached, across the plaza 
from the palace where I had my office and court room. My 
business hours were occupied in settling disputes and listening 
to complaints of the islanders. For recreation I worked in 
my garden and made excursions to various parts of the island 
either afoot or on my wheel. This evening I shall present to 
you a series of views of the island, showing the palm-fringed 
beach and coral reef as seen from my hill-top ranch ; the man- 
grove vegetation near the landing place at Piti ; the pretty 
river farming the outlet of the magnificent spring called 
Matan-hanom, with its banks bordered by overhanging cocoa- 
nut palms, screw-pines, tamarinds, breadfruit trees, and sea- 
daffodils, and near its mouth dense clumps of trunkless nipa 
palms which furnish thatch for the native houses. I shall 
also show you glimpses of the strand with native fishermen 
casting their hand-nets, and a native canoe, very different, alas ! 
from the wonderful flying praos of their ancestors ; the road 
from the landing place to Agana, traversed by buffalo carts and 
men astride cows and bullocks ; thatch-covered huts of the 
natives and tiled house of masonry of the officials and prin- 
cipal citizens, very much like those in the Philippines ; the 



44 GUAM. 

palace with its gallery and terraces ; the plaza as it was on our 
arrival, all overgrown with "Manila tamarinds," or kamachile, 
Annona reticulata, coral-bead trees ( Adenanthera pavonina) 
and ceibas, or "Manila cotton trees," and the walks bordered 
by sea-dafifodils, or white spider-lilies (Pancratiuui littorale). 
You will also see the great swamp called the Cieitaga, near 
Agaiia, with its reeds and marsh ferns ( Acrostichum aureuni) 
and the little limestone knolls rising like islands in its midst 
and covered with cocoanut-palms ; the broad savannas of the 
hills covered with sharp-edged sword grass, and sprinkled here 
and there with ironwood (Casuarina cquisetifolia) ; the flat 
mesa extending like a platform, in reality an elevated coral 
reef, covered here and there with cornfields and sweet po- 
tato and tobacco patches, with the boundaries between adjacent 
farms outlined by rows of cocoanut palms ; and in contrast with 
these I will show the dense woods with their screw-pines, 
cycads and their great banyans, objects of superstitious 
dread to the islanders, and many other trees characteristic of 
the warm moist regions of the tropics, their trunks and limbs 
clad with great bird's-nest ferns, sword-ferns, hanging lyco- 
pods and other epiphytal plants ; and in the forest clearings, 
plantations of yams and taro ; coffee plantations, scarcely re- 
quiring artificial shade on the island of Guam ; and cacao plan- 
tations, always situated in sheltered valleys where the soil is 
rich and black. 

I shall not have time to speak in detail of the animal life on 
the island ; of the great fruit-eating bats which fly about by day, 
slowly flapping their wings like crows ; the ugly green tree- 
lizards which rob birds'-nests, the beautiful green and purple 
fru'it-doves resembling the manutangis which mourn over 
Stevenson's grave on the Samoan mountain top ; the mound- 
building megapod of the northern islands of the group ; the 
blue and chestnut kingfishers with terrestrial habits, which live 
on insects and young birds ; the swifts like those which build 
the edible birds'-nests so much relished by the Chinese ; the 
pretty little scarlet and black honey-suckers that visited the 



GUAM. 45 

blooming bananas and cocoanuts in my garden ; the melodious 
reed-warbler which nested in the Cienaga; and the friendly 
little fan-tailed flycatchers that accompanied me on my \yalks 
across the island. In addition to these there were herons and 
bitterns on the reef ; rails and gallinules in the marshes ; wild 
ducks which were excellent eating; and a multitude of shore- 
birds, such as curlews, tattlers, and plovers. Among the sea- 
birds there were the cosmopolitan boobies, or gannets (Sula 
sula and Sula piscatrix), frigate birds, and tropic birds, a 
beautiful snow-white tern (Gygis alba) which I had before seen 
on the shores of Pangopango Bay, in Samoa, remarkable for 
laying a single tgg on the bare limb of a tree, without pre- 
tending to make a nest. But, strange to say, there was not a 
single gull. 

The natives do not devote themselves so much to fishing now 
as they did in former times, when one of their most exciting 
sports was trawling from their flying praos under full sail for 
bonito and flying-fish. The bait used was a piece of pearl-shell, 
which would skip from wave to wave, like a miniature silvery 
fish. Another method of fishing was by means of cast nets. 
This they still practice, making the nets of thread twisted from 
the silky fiber of pineapple leaves. With these they catch great 
numbers of small fish swimming in schools along the sandy 
beaches. They also have fish-traps and seines. 

But one of the most interesting methods of securing fish is 
by means of the fruit of a certain tree, Barringonia speciosa, 
belonging to the myrtle family. This fruit, which has narcotic 
properties, is crushed and put in a bag the night before the 
fishing is to take place. The time of an especially low tide is 
selected during certain phases of the moon, when the bags 
with their contents are sunk in deep holes in the reef. The 
fish soon begin to come to the surface, some of them apparently 
lifeless, others apparently intoxicated, others faintly strug- 
gling with their ventral side uppermost. The scene which fol- 
lows is most exciting. The natives scoop them up in nets, spear 
them, or jump overboard and seize them with their hands, some- 



46 GUAM, 

times even diving for them. And what a strange combination 
of grotesque shapes and odd and beautiful colors presents it- 
self; snake-like sea-eels, voracious lizard-fishes, gar-like hound- 
fishes with jaws prolonged into a sharp beak, Hemiramphus 
with a slender awl-shaped lower jaw and the upper jaw ab- 
ruptly truncated as though it had been broken off, long-snouted 
trumpet fishes, flat flounders with both eyes on one side of the 
head, porcupine-fish having the power to inflate their skins 
which bristle with spines ; several kinds of mullet, the finest 
food-fish of them all, with flat heads and large silvery scales 
tinged with yellow ; beautiful squirrel fishes as exquisite as 
flowers, rose-colored, scarlet, or silver-and-pink, or yellow-and- 
blue, belonging to the genus Holocentrus ; species of Upeneus 
and their allies, of various shades of yellow with peculiar lines 
of blue from the eye to the snout; gorgeous parrot-fishes with 
stout curved beaks and bodies painted in opaque colors of pink 
and blue, or some of them greenish-blue all over; beautiful little 
variegated Chaetodons, called sea-butterflies by the natives ; 
banner fishes (Zanclus canescens) with transverse bands of 
black and yellow ; rigid Ostracions with box-like armor and 
horns, called by the natives torillos, or little bulls ; leopard- 
spotted Epinephelus, like the cabrillas of the Peruvian coast; 
cardinal fishes (Apogon fasciatus) striped from head to tail in 
flesh-color and black ; gaily-striped hiyug, or lancet fishes, be- 
longing to the genus Teuthis ; black Monoceros, with a single 
spur in the middle of the forehead ; and disgusting warty toad- 
fishes, much dreaded by the natives on account of their venom- 
ous spines. This method of catching fish destroys many which 
are too small for food, and it was forbidden by the Spanish 
authorities ; but there is little danger that the numbers of fish 
will be appreciably reduced if it is practiced at rare intervals. 
Certainly, it is a good method for the naturalist making col- 
lections. 

In the mangrove swamps when the tide is low hundreds of 
little fishes resembling polywogs, with protruding eyes, may be 
seen hopping about over the black mud and climbing among 



GUAM. 47 

the aerial roots of the mangroves. These little animals are of 
special interest from the fact that their air-bladder has become 
modified into a breathing apparatus performing the function of 
a lung. 

I took with me to Guam a supply of garden seeds and naval 
orange trees from California, and a number of useful and 
ornamental plants given me by Mr. David Haughs, of the 
Honolulu Botanical Garden. My oranges died, but Captain 
Dunlap, commanding the U. S. S. Solace, kindly brought me a 
fresh supply to take their place. We were indebted to several 
naval officers for acts of kindness during our year's administra- 
tion on the island, especially to Captain Bowman H. McCalla, 
commanding the U. S. S. Newark. When Captain McCalla 
visited Agana he showed an earnest desire to help us and to 
be of use to the natives and our own men. He suggested that 
we pipe water to the town from the neighboring hill, as the 
wells are undoubtedly contaminated and typhoid fever pre- 
vailed. When he saw the primitive native method of sawing 
wood, he insisted that we put up a modern saw mill. He visited 
the hospital, and sometime afterwards sent us, on behalf of 
Mrs. McCalla, a generous supply of delicacies for the sick. 

The U. S. S. Nero, engaged in surveying a trans-Pacific 
telegraph cable route, visited us twice during the year. In ad- 
dition to fixing a good route for the cable the Nero added much 
to our knowledge of the ocean's bottom. Her most important 
discovery was that of a great abyss a short distance to the 
eastward of Guam, now known as the "Nero Deep." Captain 
Hodges, the commanding officer of the Nero, asked me, in view 
of its apparent fitness as a landing place for the cable, to make 
an inspection of the harbor of Tarofofo, on the east coast of 
the island. It was found that the shore of the island on this 
side was too precipitous for the purpose, and the cable was 
landed on Orote Peninsula, in the harbor of San Luis de Apra. 

Another visiting vessel was the U. S. Fish Commission 
steamer Albatross, with Alexander Agassiz on board. He had 
been cruising among the coral islands of the Pacific for the 



48 GUAM. 

purpose of studying the formation of coral reefs and atols and 
the geology of Pacific islands in general. As his stay at Guam 
was limited he took advantage of what information I was able 
to give him regarding the island, to supplement his own obser- 
vations made while steaming along the shores. I told him of 
the elevated coral platform or mesa, which forms the northern 
half of the island, through which the volcanic crater of Santa 
Rosa protrudes ; the well-defined terraces on the road from 
Agana to Yigo, showing a series of upheavals; the occurrence 
of funnel-shaped sinks ("lupog") in the coraliferous limestone; 
the disappearance of certain streams on the island and their 
re-appearance as from the cavern in the Tarofofo Valley and 
the Matanhanom near Agaha ; the gradual filling up of the great 
swamp near Agana, once a coral lagoon ; and the volcanic moun- 
tains in the southern part of the island, with their slopes now 
denuded of trees, and the peculiar slippery red earth which in 
places makes traveling dangerous. Mr. Agassiz said that he 
considered Guam to be, perhaps, the most interesting island the 
Albatross had visited, combining as it does elevated coral plat- 
forms and volcanic outcrops, together with coral reefs in 
process of formation. He seemed to be much interested in my 
observations on the seeds and fruits brought by the great trans- 
Pacific current which strikes the eastern coast of the island, 
and in the general subject of the dissemination of plants by 
ocean currents. 

The conditions on the island during our first administration 
may perhaps be best illustrated by an account of my trip across 
the island to Tarofofo, to which I have already referred. 

On my way I stopped at a house in which both the owner and 
his wife were quite blind. I found the man engaged in making 
twine for cast-nets by twisting pineapple fiber. The surround- 
ing farm was in a flourishing condition — here a field of corn, 
there a patch of tobacco, a little farther away a grove of young 
cocoanuts set out evenly in rows; near the house, a thicket of 
cofifee bushes, red with berries ; about the door, nuts of the 
betel palm drying in the sun ; at the edge of the forest, an 



GUAM. 49 

Alderney-like cow tethered to a tree, to keep her out of a 
neighboring patch of sweet potatoes ; and, in a newly cleared 
spot, where stumps of trees were still standing, I saw a rich 
growth of taro, some yam vines twining up a circle of poles 
inclined like a tent with a tree for the center-pole. A fine, 
strapping youth came in to prepare dinner. He was the only 
son of the old people, born before they had been stricken with 
the disease which made them lose their eyes. It was he who 
had planted the garden, who cleared the forest, cared for the 
cow, pigs, and chickens, and collected the betel nuts. Climbing 
a cocoanut tree near the house he brought down a bamboo joint 
full of tuba, (like cider just beginning to turn sharp), which, 
after putting across the top some leaves to strain it, he offered 
in a most graceful manner. My guide and I declined to stay 
to dinner, for we had a long journey before us; so he insisted 
on our taking with us some fine oranges and some eggs which 
we might eat later. I congratulated this old couple on having 
so noble a son to care for them. I could not but think how 
different their fate would have been in any other country but 
Guam, in their condition of helpless blindness, and dependent 
upon the personal care of an only child as well as for food and 
clothing. 

On the next farm my guide and I were invited to dine, but as 
we had a long journey before us, we declined. Not to be 
denied the pleasure of extending hospitality to us, the kind 
people loaded us down with eggs, oranges, and a piece of veni- 
son, for us to eat later when we might find time to do so. This 
sense of hospitality of the Guam natives distinguishes them 
from the modern Samoans, who always expect to be replaced 
ten-fold for their hospitality. 

On reaching the opposite shore of the island we turned 
southward and crossed the mouths of two small rivers, the first 
on a raft, or balsa, the second by fording. A short distance be- 
yond the mouth of the Togcha we came to a little shed on the 
margin of the sea, in which a native woman was sitting by an 
iron kettle, braiding from tender young cocoanut leaflets 



50 GUAM. 

miniature baskets which she filled with the almond-like kernels 
of Terminalia seeds. Under the kettle a fire was burning and 
in it was sea-water; the old lady was making salt. Here, I 
thought, is an example of thrift; she will sell the salt at Agaiia, 
and the nuts, perhaps, she will send to Manila, where they will 
be made into confections. A young girl was collecting fuel 
for the fire ; we heard a crow cawing in a tree near by. This 
bird, the old lady said, was very fond of the Terminalia nuts, 
as well as of corn. As we continued on our way I noticed that 
the old lady and the girl were following behind, leaving the fire 
still burning under the kettle. Then I realized that this must be 
Dona Francisca, the owner of the plantation where I expected 
to spend the night. Her son-in-law had come to me at Agana to 
ask that I settle a question involving her title to the property on 
which she was living. Her late husband, an exile from the 
Philippines, had settled upon it many years before, and it was 
the birth-place of all her children. Not long before our ar- 
rival in the island, one of the citizens of Agaha took steps to 
acquire a large tract of land on the eastern coast of Guam, in 
which Dona Francisca's fann was included. The son of this 
man now claimed the land, and was trying to have the family 
ejected. Doiia Francisca's son-in-law had not returned with 
us; he was lying in the Agafia hospital in consequence of 
having stepped on a sharp stick. 

After crossing a rocky promontory we came to the beautiful 
little bay of Tarofofo, which the commanding officer of the 
Nero had asked me to examine. To the seaward was a line of 
milk-white breakers ; on the shore there was no sign of a living 
thing. I remembered that this place was the site of a village at 
the time of the discovery of the island, inhabited by the proud- 
est and bravest of all the natives. They had incurred the dis- 
pleasure of the Spaniards, not on account of any act of cruelty 
or dishonesty, but because they refused to give up the faith 
of their fathers for that of the missionaries. Don Antonio de 
Salas, who arrived on the island in 1678, determined to break 
their pride ; so he marched upon the village of Tarofofo and 



GUAM. 51 

the neighboring one of Pigpug, guided by two natives, Ayihi 
and Soon, who were false to their fellow islanders, and burned 
the villages to ashes, destroyed their boats, as well as their stores 
of rice, which represented months of honest toil, and all their 
other belongings, the simple natives defending themselves as 
best they could with their slings and lances against the fire- 
arms of the Spaniards. The story is told by the Spaniards 
themselves, and is only one of the many atrocities committed 
by them. 

Turning inland we followed the north shore of the Tarofofo 
river, wading through a stream of liquid mud. Seeing the con- 
dition of the road through which we were floundering I in- 
sisted that the old lady should mount the cow on which I had 
been riding; but she declined, saying she was used to the road, 
and that I would get my white clothes wet and muddy. So I 
kept my seat drawing up my legs as high as possible. The old 
lady informed me that within a few months the valley would be 
dry and that she would plant it in corn. Finally we found our- 
selves in a beautiful valley, where, surrounded by fruit trees of 
many kinds, there was a large house elevated from the ground 
on posts and covered with a thatch of Nipa palm leaves. A 
swarm of little children came running out to meet us, crying: 
"Oh, little grandmother, what have you brought us?" Then I 
saw for what purpose the little toy baskets of Terminalia al- 
monds were intended ; each little child received one from the 
little brown woman. When we entered the house they over- 
whelmed her ; I thought of the woman who lived in a shoe ; this 
one certainly had so many grandchildren she scarcely knew 
what to do. She sat down on the bamboo floor, and they 
climbed upon her, pulling down her thin gray hair and loving 
her with all their might. Taking some young leaves of the 
cocoanut palm she began to make all sorts of toys, little stars 
and crosses, and little two-winged birds which seemed to fly, 
suspended from a fibre of the leaf at the end of a reed. 

The walls of the main room were decorated with the red- 
spotted shells of the "painted crab;" a triton shell, like Nep- 



52 GUAM. 

tune's trumpet, hung from a nail by the door ; and in a little 
alcove a lamp of cocoanut oil burned before a bright colored 
picture of the Virgin. A large inverted trough, hollowed from 
a tree-trunk and used for tanning, served as a settee. There 
were also a bench of Ifil wood (Afzelia bijuga) and a polished 
table of the same material, which shone like mahogany. 

Suddenly I heard a commotion among the pigs under the 
floor; one of them was to be killed for supper. Its throat was 
soon cut and its bristles singed off by torches improvised from 
dry cocoanut leaves. Seeing two young girls engaged in pre- 
paring supper, I asked whether they had any nuts of the 
Cycas, or "sago palm," in the house. They showed me a bag 
full of the prepared kernels, and I asked them to prepare me a 
tortilla from them. This they did after protesting that rice 
and corn, of which they had a bountiful supply, were much 
better than "fadang." The supper was excellent. Fortunately 
there was venison ; so I declined to partake of the recently 
killed pig. With the exception of the venison, which was 
from the neighboring hill-top savanna, and the rice, which was 
grown near the village of Inarahan, everything on the table 
had been produced in this little valley of Tarofofo ; eggs, yams, 
taro, tortillas of corn, coffee of fine quality, brown sugar made 
from cocoanut sap, oranges, pineapples, and the unripe cocoa- 
nuts which furnished a cool delicious drink. We could have had 
chocolate made from beans grown within a few yards of the 
house. Even the salt had been evaporated from sea-water by 
the old lady, and the various members of the family wore 
slippers made of deer-skins tanned by her sons-in-law with the 
bark of island mangroves and kamachile (Pithecolobium duke). 

Before going to bed the lights were extinguished and a 
smudge was kindled to drive out the mosquitoes. I was shown 
into a side room, where a comfortable bed of mats had been 
prepared on the split-bamboo floor. My pillow was a cushion 
stuffed with floss of the silk-cotton tree (Cciba pcntandra), 
which in the East Indies is commercially known as kapok. 
During the night I was awakened once or twice by the quarrel- 



GUAM. 53 

ing of the pigs beneath me. I heard a distant roar, or rather a 
murmur, which I thought was caused by the surf. The follow- 
ing morning I found that this was the noise of a river which 
rushed forth from a grotto at the base of a cliff a short distance 
from the house. This river enters a sinkhole on the mesa more 
than a mile distant and reappears in this valley. Near the door 
I noticed a large stone having a cylindrical socket in it. I was 
told that this had been used by the ancient Chamorros for 
husking rice, and that it still served for this purpose. When 
I expressed my interest in island antiquities my hostess told 
me of the egg-shaped sling-stones frequently found in the vi- 
cinity, and of parallel standing stones not far from the beach 
along which I would pass on my return trip. 

In a short time my cow was saddled and several chickens 
were caught by means of a noose on the end of a fishing pole, 
to be sent to the man in the hospital. His young wife accom- 
panied me back to Agafia carrying with her a number of island 
dainties. At Yofia I changed cows ; the son of the old blind 
couple lent me his sleek little cow, and her little calf galloped by 
her side as she trotted nimbly along the road. He refused to 
sell her to me at any price, saying that his father often came to 
town on her back, and would trust no other cow. 

When I went to bed that night and thought of the happy 
valley a passage from Virgil came to me, beginning : 

"O fortunatos ninihim, sua si bona norint, agricolas!" 

Happy indeed, if they but realized it. And what I had 
seen might have furnished Virgil with his description : the 
peace and quiet of a life remote from discordant arms, the 
generous earth pouring forth her fruits, the homely dwelling 
with its unadorned pillars, even the unadulterated oil, and the 
living waters issuing from the grotto (spehmcae viviquc lacus). 
Surely I had found Arcadia. And then the natural wealth, 
the youths enduring toil and content with little, and the warm 
affection which seemed to bind the family together! As I 
went to sleep I could hear once more the little children calling: 
"Oh, little grandmother, what have you brought us?" 



54 GUAM. 

If wealth consists in the abihty to gratify one's wants, the 
people of Guam, when I lived among them, could be called 
rich. Were it not for the occasional disastrous earthquakes and 
hurricanes, life on the beautiful Httle island might be called 
ideal. At that time not a single native depended entirely for his 
livelihood either on commerce or a trade. There were men who 
burned lime, cut stone for building, tanned leather, and made 
shoes; but such a thing as a mason, tanner, or shoemaker by 
trade, supporting his family exclusively by his handiwork, was 
unknown. In the midst of building a stone wall, the native who 
had consented to help with the work might say : "Excuse me, 
senor, but I must go to my rancho for a few days ; the weeds 
are getting ahead of my corn." In trying to get lime, the man 
to whom one applies might say : "With pleasure, senor, I shall 
be only too glad to furnish you with lime. I shall soon finish 
gathering my cocoanuts for copra ; then I will get my boys to 
cut wood and prepare a kiln ; we have plently of good coral 
rock, which has been weathering long enough to get all the 
salt out of it ; never fear, seiior, you shall have your lime within 
six weeks." 

The result of these conditions was that if a father should die 
the wife and little ones were not left destitute, as would have 
been the case had they depended on his handiwork alone. The 
crops continued to ripen and were gathered in due time by the 
family; the tobacco patch was weeded and kept free from 
worms ; the coffee bushes bent each year, as before, under their 
weight of crimson berries ; and the cocoanuts yielded their 
annual dividend. Indeed, the products of the farm yielded in 
most cases an income amply sufficient to supply the family 
with their simple clothing, some flour or rice brought by trad- 
ers from Japan or America to exchange for copra, and perhaps 
a few delicacies, a ribbon or two, or a new saint for the little 
alcove, where the cocoanut oil lamp keeps burning. 

On taking up the administration of island affairs, U. S. offi- 
cials were confronted by many problems not easy to solve. 
Some of the natives declared that they had been told by the 



GUAM. 55 

first Americans who landed on the island that they were free, 
and would not have to pay taxes. It did not occur to them 
that roads would have to be kept up, bridges repaired, and 
school teachers paid for the instruction of the young. Disputes 
between the natives had to be settled. Crimes and misdemean- 
ors had to be punished, and regulations for cleanliness and sani- 
tation had to be enforced. It was not only questions relating 
to the government of the natives that embarassed us. Our own 
enlisted men gave us no little trouble at first. Some of our 
measures were laughed at by the newspapers, who justly ac- 
cused us of paternalism; sometimes, however, we were misrep- 
resented and our motives impugned. 

It must not be inferred that in establishing new regulations 
we found only defects in the old laws governing the island. 
Most of them were excellent and remain in force to the present 
day. Nor were fine traits lacking in the islanders. They have 
been accused of laziness, yet they provide their families with 
comfortable homes, plenty of nourishing food, and sufficient 
clothing. They have been called uncivilized, yet they have the 
manners of polished gentlemen and ladies ; and in their filial 
piety and veneration for the aged, as well as in their devotion 
to their children and tender care of the fatherless and moth- 
erless, they excel all people I have known. They have been 
called uneducated, but education does not consist in book-learn- 
ing alone; and their children undergo a course of practical 
training from the earliest age, when they go into the fields to 
help their elders plant and weed and harvest, receiving an edu- 
cation which eminently fits them for the life they are to live, 
and enables them to marry at the age when human beings 
should marry, in the vigor of young manhood and young wo- 
manhood, with capacity for raising their broods of little ones 
and without fear of poverty. 

The natives of Guam have been held up to the world, by the 
publication of official orders, as living in a state of concubinage ; 
yet in most of the families on the island of Guam which I have 
known the relations between husband and wife, and children and 



56 GUAM. 

parents, have been ideal. It is easy enough for those who enjoy 
the privileges of unlimited divorces and re-marriages to ex- 
press horror at irregularity in marriage relations. It must be 
remembered that on this little island all the natives were Catho- 
lics, and mistakes in matrimonial ventures could not be rectified 
by law nor re-marriages be sanctioned by the Church. More- 
over, the natives had had among their governors, and among 
their religious guides, men whose examples tended to give them 
lax notions of the relations between the sexes ; though in the list 
of Spanish officials and Church authorities who have lived on 
the island there are names of many noble men whose private 
lives have been without reproach. I was struck with the signi- 
ficance of a remark of one intelligent native, while discussing 
the afifairs of the island. "We have noticed one thing," said 
she, "the island has always been happier under a governor who 
has brought his wife with him. Perhaps it was because he was 
a good man that she consented to leave Spain and come so far ; 
or perhaps he was a better man because his wife had come with 
him, and the other people around him, officers as well as na- 
tives, were better for his example." 

Among the official orders issued during our administration 
there were a number which did not meet with universal approv- 
al. Some of our enlisted men, after having been cooped up for a 
long period on board ship, took advantage of an unlimited sup- 
ply of cheap cocoanut brandy to drink too much. We had to 
forbid its manufacture : and finally, on account of troubles be- 
tween men and natives which could be traced to intemperance, 
the sale of all alcoholic liquors had to be prohibited. Some of 
the natives complained of the taxes ; they seemed to think that in 
being freed from the Spanish yoke, they had at the same time 
been freed from the responsibilities of citizenship. 

Peonage was found to exist ; it was promptly abolished. Mer- 
chants encouraged the natives to go into debt and forced them 
to take in exchange for their farm products useless and unnec- 
essary articles instead of money, thus preventing habits of 
thrift and prudent provision for possible periods of famine. 



GUAM. 57 

We did what we could to correct this evil and to encourage the 
natives to be provident. 

It was found that on this little island a few astute individuals 
had become possessed of vast tracts of land claimed by them 
as pastures, but that they had very few cattle and allowed the 
land to remain idle. It occurred to me that if all lands were 
adequately taxed, unused land bringing in no returns would be 
returned to the government. Taxes were accordingly levied 
with this object in view, and the result was that these usurpers 
turned over a part of the land claimed by them, and it was 
reissued to bona-fide farmers, who before had been prosecuted 
as trespassers for attempting to cultivate small patches of the 
same land. 

Complaints were made to the United States government of 
our arbitrary acts, and President McKinley sent an army offi- 
cer, General Joseph Wheeler, to investigate conditions on the 
island — a most unusual proceeding, since the administration 
of island affairs was wholly naval. General Wheeler was 
given opportunity while on the island to listen to complaints, 
and to ascertain the causes which led to our official acts. In 
his report to the President, General Wheeler stated that, though 
the strict legality of some of our measures might be question- 
ed, "there was no question but that the Governor and his aide, 
Lieutenant Safford, had used their best judgment in framing 
the orders which have become the laws of the island of Guam.*" 

One of our orders, which, among other things, decreed that 
the native families should each have a certain number of hens 
and a brood sow, caused much merriment among the news- 
papers. This was a necessity, owing to the serious diminution 
of the food supply caused by the arrival of a great number of 
consumers on the island, and the custom of visiting ships of 
laying in a large stock of provisions produced on the island. 
Another order forbidding the transfer of land without the 
sanction of the Governor was necessary to checkmate specu- 

*Report on the Island of Guam by Brigadier-General Joseph Wheeler. 
Adjutant-General's Office. Doc. No. 123, p. 35. June, 1900. 



58 GUAM. 

lators who were trying to buy valuable land along the water 
front which would later be required for government purposes. 
The order subsequently prevented the acquisition of valuable 
land by certain Japanese subjects living on the island. 

The natives have ceased to be a community of navigators and 
fishermen. Not a single "flying prao" for which the island 
was once celebrated now exists. At the time of our adminis- 
tration they were all tillers of the soil. I know of no part of 
the world where agriculture plays so important a part in the 
daily economy of the inhabitants. 

One of the greatest boons to the island since the American 
occupation was the establishment by the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture, in 1908, of an Experimental Station, the most 
important work of which has been the successful introduction 
of valuable forage crops on the island. It was owing to the 
lack of forage that the fine blooded cattle we took with us to 
Guam on the Brutus perished. Many of the native animals 
are compelled to eat breadfruit leaves and branches of trees or 
banana stalks. The station is also taking steps to improve the 
particular varieties of corn already growing on the island, 
which has never before been systematically selected with this 
object in view ; and methods have been devised for drying it 
and storing it in metal tanks to protect it from mold and from 
the attacks of weevils, which are a great pest on the island. 
The storing of a certain amount of corn on the island is 
especially advisable, to guard against famine following oc- 
casional tornadoes which sweep the island, often totally de- 
stroying all crops, killing entire plantations of cacao, tearing to 
shreds banana plants, and breaking off cocoanut trees. 

The effect of abandoning agriculture would be disastrous. 
I can think of no greater misfortune to the natives of Guam 
than to become a race of government day laborers or mechanics 
and ceasing to be independent cultivators of their own farms. 

One thing was accomplished by the first American adminis- 
tration on the island, which can never be undone. To protect 
the natives from grasping intruders, we required the inhabitants 



GUAM. 59 

to establish titles to their lands and record them according to 
law. In making their declarations they indicated the bound- 
aries of the areas claimed by them, and their adjoining neigh- 
bors were called in and shown a plat of the claims. When 
these boundaries were agreed to by the neighbors, and not 
before, they were duly registered. One thousand such titles 
were granted. For this, at least, we hope that the people of 
Guam may remember us with gratitude. 



LAFAYETTE AND THE FRENCH PARTICIPATION 

IN THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN 

REVOLUTION 

By Compatriot WILLIAM A. DeCAINDRY. 
(Read before the Society, November 15, 1911.) 

One of the objects of the Society of the Sons of the Ameri- 
can Revolution is the encouragement of historical research in 
relation to the American Revolution, and another is the per- 
petuation of the memory of the men who, by their services or 
sacrifices during that war, achieved the independence of the 
American people. 

I have been requested to prepare a paper for this evening 
upon some topic appropriate to the objects of the Society; and 
at the suggestion of our worthy Chaplain that I speak upon the 
subject of the French participation in the Revolutionary 
struggle. I have, in order to freshen our memories, made the 
following compilation from authentic sources of facts relating 
to the ]\Iarquis de Lafayette on the one hand, and to the Army 
of Count Rochambeau on the other; for it must always be 
borne in mind that Lafayette, though a Frenchman, held his 
rank and commission in the Revolutionary War under a reso- 
lution of the American Congress, adopted July 31, 1777, direct- 
ing that "his services be accepted, and that in consideration of 
his zeal, illustrious family and connections, he have the rank 
and commission of Major General of the United States." 
After he had served some time on the staff of Washington, and 
had been given the independent command of a division, he 
thereafter commanded American and not French troops. The 
reason for this was that Rochambeau, besides being much his 
military senior and of a more distinguished military career at 
home, held the high rank of Lieutenant-General when, in 1780, 
(at the earnest solicitation of Lafayette himself), he was sent 
by the King of France, with a French army, to help Washington 
in the joint war against Great Britain then pending. 



lafayi;tte. 6i 

Cutter, in his Life of Lafayette, says : 

"The long struggle of the American colonies with their unnatural 
stepmother excited but little interest in Europe in its incipient stages. 
Even in France, the natural enemy of England, its causes and its 
progress were but little understood. It was not until the Rubicon was 
irrevocably passed, the gauntlet of open defiance thrown down, the 
Declaration of Independence signed, sworn to, and published to the 
world, that any portion of Europe became aware of the importance of 
that struggle, or of the numbers and strength of the people who 
claimed a place in the family of nations. The deep tones of that 
solemn and unanswerable Declaration, borne on the breeze across 
the Atlantic, struck the ear of legitimacy like a distant knell. Mon- 
archy and aristocracy quaked alike, and looked aghast at each other ; 
and, except in the heart of a Lafayette, and of here and there a 
Polish refugee of rank and talent, it would have found no response 
in the high places of the Old World, had not the long-cherished hos- 
tility of France against England seen in it a favorable opportunity 
to humble her rival by assisting to wrench from her all-grasping sway 
her most valuable colonial possessions. Even France came forward 
with slow and hesitating steps to widen the breach. Had she known 
the real nature and tendency of the contest — had she understood 
the character of the American people, or foreseen the form of govern- 
ment which they would ultimately adopt — it is not probable that she 
could have been induced to come fprward at all. Her king and his 
cabinet no doubt expected a western monarchy, or, at the worst, an 
aristocracy, and not a republic whose history should be the text-book 
of revolution to all free spirits in all the empires of the world." 

While this was undoubtedly the attitude of the French King 
and his counsellors, the people of France, who had suffered 
the abuses of generations of arbitrary and corrupt government, 
welcomed, in the example of America, "a proof that tyranny, 
ruinous taxation, and oppression need not endure forever." 
Even the highest ranks of society in France made American 
affairs the principal subject of discussion, and the American 
cause occupied the attention of the philosophical and intelligent 
world. 

The central and most conspicuous figure in the participation 
of the French people in the war of the American Revolution 
was the Marquis de Lafayette. His knowledge of the merits 



62 LAFAYETTE. 

of the controversy between the colonies and the mother country 
was not acquired until after the publication of the Declaration 
of Independence. He w^as then a young officer in the French 
Army, and but nineteen years of age. Although himself a 
member of the noblesse of France, and endowed with a hand- 
some fortune, he was singularly free from the heartless and 
artificial sentiments of his time ; and when he first learned the 
subject of the quarrel, his heart espoused the cause of liberty, 
and he longed for an opportunity to join in the struggle then 
impending. "When first I heard of American independence," 
said he, "my heart was enlisted." 

With the assistance of the Baron de Kalb he was enabled to 
procure from the American Envoy then in Paris promises of 
an early passage to America, and assurances of the position of 
Major General in the American Army. He left France 
secretly in April, 1777, against the wishes of his relatives of 
the Court, and the positive interdiction of the King. 

Congress, becoming aware of his mission on his arrival in 
Philadelphia in July, 1777, and of the sacrifices he was then 
and there ready to make in order to enter the service even as a 
volunteer without pay in case his commission as Major General 
was refused, thereupon, on the 31st of the month, conferred 
upon him the full rank of Major General in the Army of the 
United States. 

The modest bearing and disinterested zeal of young 
Lafayette, then a little less than twenty years of age, com- 
mended him to the aft'ectionate regard of Washington, and ere 
long there was established between these two personages a 
friendship of the most intimate and enduring character. He 
rendered conspicuous service under the immediate eye of 
Washington. In rallying the troops at the battle of the Brandy- 
wine he was wounded by a musket-ball ; and at the battle of 
Gloucester, near Philadelphia, he attacked with great im- 
petuosity and routed the enemy at that point. Early in De- 
cember, 1777, with the assent of Congress, he was placed in 
command of the Virginia militia, consisting of a division of the 



LAFAYETTE. 63 

Army under Washington. He had then just completed his 
twentieth year. 

During this period of his service he had, on his own account, 
conducted an able correspondence with influential persons in 
France and in the French colonies, having in view the ad- 
vancement of the cause in which he was engaged. The Ameri- 
can Commissioners, upon succeeding, on February 6, 1778, in 
negotiating a treaty of amity and guarantee of independence of 
the United States by the Court of France, called upon Madame 
Lafayette at Paris, and "made public acknowledgment of the 
indebtedness of their country to her husband." 

The news of this treaty, received in April, 1778, infused new 
energy into the patriots engaged in the struggle and into Con- 
gress, and the campaign of 1778 opened with great spirit and 
enthusiasm. In July the fleet of d'Estaing arrived in accord- 
ance with the treaty, but was unfortunately of little service to 
the country. 

In October, 1778, Lafayette solicited and obtained leave of 
Congress to visit France, which was then, in consequence of 
the treaty, in open hostilities with England. At the same time 
he received the official vote of thanks of Congress, and an 
elegant sword was ordered by that body to be presented to him 
in the name of the United States. He sailed in January, 1779. 

The French Minister at Philadelphia, writing to his govern- 
ment at the time, said : 

"You know how little inclined I am to flattery, but I cannot resist 
saying that the prudent, courageous and amiable conduct of the 
Marquis de Lafayette has made him the idol of Congress, the Army 
and the people of America." 

Received with every demonstration of respect and admi- 
ration at the Court of Louis XVI, which he had left somewhat 
under a cloud but two years before, he now practically became 
the "main connecting link" between the two countries. In a 
letter to Washington , he said : 

"What I wish — what would make me the happiest of men — is to 
join again the American colors, or put under your orders a division 
of 4,000 or 5,000 countrymen of mine." 



64 LAFAYETTE. 

He finally succeeded in having sent to America 6,000 French 
troops, under the command of Count Rochambeau, who were 
to constitute a division of the Army of General Washington. 
Lafayette returned to America under his commission of an 
American officer, and unconnected with the auxiliary army 
under Rochambeau. It was in the uniform of a Continental 
Major General that he had his farewell audience at the Court of 
Versailles. He arrived in Boston at the end of April, 1780. 

The division of 6,000 troops sailed from Brest May 2, 1780. 
The fleet made several captures on the way, and engaged an 
English squadron without result near the Bermudas. It came 
on soundings ofif Chesapeake Bay July 4, 1780, and reached its 
destination at Newport, R. I., on July 10, 1780. In October 
and November, 1780, the French troops were quartered in 
Newport and North Providence,. R. I., and in Lebanon, Con- 
necticut. They were visited by Washington in March, 1781. 

Meanwhile, Lafayette had been given a command in Virginia 
consisting of about 3,000 American troops. Here he was 
opposed to vastly superior numbers, under the command of 
Major General Cornwallis, one of the ablest and most ex- 
perienced generals in the British service. This distinguished 
officer had so poor an opinion of the abilities of Lafayette as 
to cause him unwittingly to boast that "the boy cannot escape 
me." 

Lafayette, however, succeeded (in the language of his bi- 
ographer) — 

"in escaping his [Cornwallis'] best laid snares, foiling his most ju- 
dicious arrangements, out-maneuvring his ablest and most rapid 
movements, harassing him in rear and flank in all his marches, and 
finally in partly driving and partly luring him into a corner, from 
which all his after-efforts were insufficient to extricate him, and where 
he was compelled at length to lay down his arms." 

It was decided at the North, in May, 1781, in a conference 
between Washington and Rochambeau, to undertake a cam- 
paign against the British at New York. The French camp at 
Newport was broken on June 10, and by the 21st they and all 



LAFAYETTE. 65 

Other troops under Rochambeau were en route for the Hudson 
river to form a junction with Washington at Dobbs' Ferry, 
which place was reached by July 6. Here the united forces 
lay encamped for six weeks in preparing for an attack on the 
British forces around New York, when news arrived of the 
sailing of the Count de Grasse from San Domingo with his 
entire fleet, having 3,000 land troops on board to be employed 
in the Chesapeake. The attempt on New York was therefore 
abandoned, and a campaign in Virginia against Cornwallis was 
hurriedly decided upon. The "hoy" in Virginia, for whose 
military abilities Cornwallis entertained so contemptuous an 
opinion, had in the meantime pushed and lured that dis- 
tinguished officer into intrenchments at Yorktown, where he 
held him securely pending the coming of the Count de Grasse. 
That officer arriving in the Chesapeake on August 31 was eager 
to attack, but Lafayette having learned of the intentions of 
Washington to push South, prudently delayed any demonstra- 
tion until Washington's arrival. 

The French troops under Rochambeau began their march 
from Dobb's Ferry as a part of Washington's Army, on August 
22; reached Philadelphia by way of Trenton September 4; 
Baltimore September 12; Annapolis September 18, whence they 
embarked September 21 ; anchored in Lynnhaven Bay Sep- 
tember 22 ; set sail September 27, and entered James river, 
reaching Hog's Ferry September 24, where the troops were 
disembarked ; marched thence to Williamsburg and encamped 
on September 26. 

Two days at Williamsburg for rest sufficed both the Ameri- 
can and French troops. On September 27, Washington, in 
supreme command, issued an order of battle, and on the 28th 
the entire combined forces advanced within about four miles of 
Yorktown, at a point where the road divided, the Americans 
taking the right, the French the left. On September 30, York- 
town was completely invested, the line extending in a semi- 
circle to the distance of two miles from the enemy's works, 
each wing resting on the York river. 



66 LAFAYETTE. 

Siege operations were at once begun. By October 6 the first 
parallel was established within 600 yards of the enemy's works, 
and by October 1 1 the second parallel within 300 yards. From 
October 10 to 15, the bombardment of the British by the com- 
bined forces was incessant. On the night of the i6th, Corn- 
wallis attempted to effect a retreat by the aid of a bridge of 
boats across the York river, but was frustrated by a violent 
storm. On the 17th he proposed a cessation of hostilities for 
twenty-four hours to settle terms of a surrender. Two hours 
were given, at the end of which Cornwallis acceded to the basis 
of a capitulation. The treaty was given final form on the i8th, 
and on the 19th the formal surrender took place. 

The returns of the British army, according to one authority, 

showed that 7,247 men were surrendered. The casualties were 

as follows : 

Deserted 
and Taken 
Killed. Wounded. Prisoners. 

British, 309 120 123 

French, 50 127 

American, 27 73 

The British lost 214 pieces of artillery of all calibers, 7,320 
small arms, 22 flags, and 457 horses. They also lost 64 vessels, 
about 20 of which they sank. 

On November i the French army went into winter quarters. 

A detachment of the French troops which had been stationed 
at Baltimore under the command of General Lavalette sailed 
for France from the Capes of Delaware on May 12, 1782. In 
July and August of that year the remaining division of the 
French army set out on the march for Crompond, on the North 
river, and arrived at that place on September 14. On October 
22, they broke camp at Crompond and marched to King's 
Ferry, where they were received by the Continental troops with 
military honors. They then proceeded to their old camp 
ground near Providence; thence to Boston, whence they em- 
barked for home. 

Lafayette arrived at Philadelphia from Yorktown in No- 



LAFAYETTE. 67 

vember, 1781, and there received an indefinite leave from the 
Army. Every attention was paid him on his journey to Boston, 
from which point he sailed for France. He arrived in that 
country on January 17, 1782. Here the French people were 
carried away with enthusiasm over his success — the Queen, 
Marie Antoinette, taking Madame de Lafayette in her own 
carriage to meet him on his arrival at Paris. He was immedi- 
ately appointed a Marshal of France, and soon was invited to 
dine with all the Marshals of France, on which occasion the 
health of Washington was drunk with every honor. In March, 
1782, Benjamin Franklin wrote: 

"The Marquis de Lafayette was, at his return hither, received by- 
all ranks with all possible distinction. He daily gains in the general 
esteem and affection, and promises to be a great man here. He is 
extremely attached to our cause ; we are on the most friendly and 
confidential footing with each other, and he is very serviceable to me 
in my applications for additional assistance." 

The negotiations of the treaty of peace between Great 
Britain and America were so endlessly prolonged by the British 
Ministry that France and Spain agreed to send a fleet of 60 
ships of the line and 24,000 men to America to bring matters to 
a decisive issue. Lafayette was appointed Chief of Staff of 
this combined force, but on the point of its sailing from Cadiz 
news was received of the signing of the treaty at Paris, in 1783, 
and the expedition was abandoned. 

During the succeeding two years Lafayette devoted himself, 
in his capacity as an American officer, to advancing the interests 
of America in his native country. One of his cares was the 
duty of looking out for the interests of the Society of the 
Cincinnati in France ; his special business being to determine 
the claims of the French officers to membership, and to dis- 
tribute the crosses of that Society among those who had a right 
to them. Crosses of the military Order of St. Louis had also 
been distributed to officers who had distinguished themselves 
at Yorktown. 

In 1784 Lafayette made a visit to this country, receiving the 
homage of the people and of Congress during his six months 



68 LAFAYETTE. 

Stay. He made a general tour of the Atlantic States, meeting 
Washington at Mount Vernon and again at Richmond, and 
visiting with him some of the scenes of the war. Finally ar- 
riving at Trenton, he resigned his commission as an American 
officer, and took his leave of Congress. He sailed from Xew 
York for France on Christmas day, 1784. His biographer, 
Tuckerman, says : 

"Throughout this long journey his reception was a continual ova- 
tion. In every city, dinners, balls, and public gatherings in his honor 
took place, with the usual accompaniments of complimentary ad- 
dresses and responses. The honors paid to him were justified on the 
one side and deserved on the other. The people of the United States 
celebrated their own hard-earned success in the attentions they paid 
to one who had worked so disinterestedly for their cause. On the 
other hand, Lafayette deserved the gratitude of which he was receiv- 
ing such extraordinary testimony. In a dark hour of the American 
cause, he, a foreigner, had left wife, friends, fortune, and all the 
luxuries of aristocratic existence, to fight for the people among whom 
he now stood. He had risked his life and reputation in their struggle; 
he had cheerfully spent his energies and money in it ; he had adopted 
their interests as his own, sharing their hardships with perfect pa- 
tience, and thinking no sacrifice of consequence which could diminish 
them. He had identified himself so thoroughly with the American 
people that, in the operations of the war calling for the combined 
action of native and French troops, he had spared no exertion to 
advance the honor of American soldiers. In Europe he had proudly 
borne testimony to American character and institutions, resenting 
any aspersions as a personal affront. In his military campaigns he 
had been a faithful and meritorious officer, doing his duty with 
bravery and discretion wherever placed by the orders of his superiors. 
His services in procuring money and troops from France are not to 
be exaggerated, and these are the most material advantages due to 
his efforts. But tJie presence of Lafayette in America in 1784, and 
the memory of his name since that time, have awakened feelings of 
enthusiasm and gratitude which are due to other sources than calcu- 
lations of value received. The noble enthusiasm with which he first 
espoused their cause, and the unselfish devotion which he brought to 
it, will always meet with responsive affection in the hearts of Ameri- 
cans." 

I have not the time to tell at length and in detail the career 
of Lafayette after his return to France. The beginning of the 



LAFAYETTE. 69 

French Revolution dates from the Assembly of the Notables in 
1787. The Assembly had been called to provide means for 
continuing the excesses and extravagances of the King and 
nobles. In this Assembly Lafayette took a conspicuous part, 
and openly and forcibly advocated the theory that there should 
be no taxation without representation. This had been the key- 
note of the American Revolution, and to effectually bring about 
the practical application of this principle in the government of 
France Lafayette advocated the convocation by the King of a 
National Assembly of the States-General, which was a repre- 
sentative body. This proposal met the hearty approval of the 
oppressed people of France. The exigencies of the times com- 
pelled the King to call such an Assembly in 1789, but he sur- 
rounded it with soldiers and declined to withdraw them upon 
request of the Assembly. Lafayette therefore presented for 
the consideration of the Assembly his "Declaration of Rights," 
which echoed the immortal words of our own "Declaration of 
Independence." Meanwhile armed conflicts between the 
King's troops and the mob were taking place in the streets of 
Paris ; the Bastile had fallen, and with it fell all arbitrary 
kingly power and feudalism in France. The King threw him- 
self upon the Assembly for protection, his troops having in 
large part joined the mob, and the Assembly chose Lafayette 
to organize and command a National Guard. This he did with 
signal success, and maintained order in the French capital until 
a constitutional monarchy had been established in 1791, when 
he resigned and repaired to his home. 

Subsequently, in 1792, he was appointed to the command of 
a large army at Metz to co-operate against an invasion by the 
armies of Prussia and Austria which had been undertaken with 
the view of destroying the constitutional government that had 
been set up in France. But under the machinations of the 
Jacobin faction the constitutional government was overthrown 
by the Assembly on August 10, 1792, and a convention sum- 
moned to determine the future government of the country, the 
King and Royal family being imprisoned in the Temple. This 



70 LAFAYETTE. 

faction sent commissioners to Lafayette to induce him to take 
sides with the revolutionary party, but that officer imprisoned 
the commissioners and caused the soldiers of his command to 
renew their oath of fidelity to the King. As, however, all 
other armies and provinces to whom emissaries had been sent 
had taken the oath of fidelity to the revolutionary party, the 
constitutional monarchy was irretrievably destroyed. 

Lafayette's position had thus become no longer tenable. He 
therefore determined to seek an asylum in England or America, 
with the hope some day to be again of service to liberty and to 
France. In making his escape towards Brussels he unfor- 
tunately ran into an Austrian outpost at Rochefort and was 
arrested and conveyed to Wesel, where he was confined several 
months. He was removed to Magdebourg in March, 1793, 
where he remained for nearly a year in a mouldy cell about 8 
feet by 4 feet, excavated under the ramparts, into which the 
light was only admitted through a small opening in the door, 
but no ray of sunlight. Two guards fixed their eyes unceas- 
ingly upon him, otherwise his solitude was complete. x\fter 
five months of such treatment he was allowed to pass one hour 
daily in the courtyard guarded by soldiers. Early in 1794 he 
was transferred to Neisse, and subsequently to Olmutz, where 
he was kept in solitary confinement and only known by a 
number given him and not by his name. In a few months his 
health became so broken as to require that he should be allowed 
to take an occasional walk or drive under guard. It was on 
one of these drives that an unsuccessful attempt at rescue was 
made by Dr. Erick Bollman, of Hanover, and F. K. Huger, of 
South Carolina, on November 8, 1794. After this attempt he 
was confined to his cell with unremitting severity and sub- 
jected to new privations. A bundle of straw, which was rarely 
changed, was substituted for a bed ; his clothing was allowed to 
become so ragged as hardly to cover him ; his physician was 
never allowed to speak to him. The solitude of his confine- 
ment and the ignorance of the fate of his family preyed upon 
his health and greatly reduced his strength. In October, 1795, 



LAFAYETTE. 7I 

his wife and two daughters were permitted to join him in his 
imprisonment. His wife had been arrested in France in 
September, 1792, while the terrible massacres of that time 
were taking place; again in October, 1793, and imprisoned. In 
June, 1794, she was brought to Paris and imprisoned to await 
her turn at the guillotine, and on July 2.2, 1794, she remained 
in the prison while her grandmother, her mother and her sister 
were carried out and beheaded on the same guillotine. But 
Madame Lafayette did not obtain her freedom until February, 
1795, which she owed largely to the exertions of Mr. Monroe, 
the American Minister. 

Nearly two years were passed by the Lafayette family at the 
prison at Olmiitz. Meanwhile powerful influences were set in 
motion in England and America to induce their liberation. 
Among the Americans were George Washington and Thomas 
Jefferson, the former of whom sent an unofficial letter to the 
Emperor of Austria in May, 1796, asking that Lafayette be 
permitted to come to America. His release from the prison 
of Olmiitz took place in September, 1797. The reason alleged 
by the Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs for the release 
was that it was "to show the Emperor's consideration for the 
United States of America." But Lafayette had little faith in 
the sincerity of these Austrian pretenses, and rather chose to 
credit his deliverance to the influence of Napoleon Bonaparte, 
who, in the treaty of Campo Formio, which was imposed upon 
Austria by the Corsican after lengthy negotiations extending 
over the summer and early fall of 1797, stipulated for the 
release of Lafayette. The treaty was not signed until the 17th 
of October, 1797, but, in anticipation of the acceptance of its 
terms, the Austrian Government caused Lafayette to be con- 
ducted to Hamburg in September, 1797, where the Austrian 
Minister delivered him over to the American Consul. He was 
not permitted by the French Directory to at once return to 
France. He did return, however, in 1799, and during the 
Bonaparte era rendered distinguished service to the cause of 
freedom in France. 



72 I.AFAYETTE. 

It was upon the invitation of Congress that Lafayette again 
visited this country in 1824. Says his biographer: 

"To describe the brilliant parades, the triumphal processions, the 
costly fetes, the balls, the parties which made his long and rapid jour- 
ney an uninterrupted gala day of excitement and display, would be 
to repeat a thousand times, with variations, the same gorgeous and 
imposing scene. To recite all the fine speeches, or even to realize 
all the interesting incidents of his triumphal tour, would require a 
volume." 

Congress voted him $200,000, together with 24,000 acres of 
land, as a shght testimonial of the sense which the American 
people entertained of his services in the cause of American in- 
dependence. 

At the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill monument 
on the 17th of June, 1825, Daniel Webster, speaking of and to 
him, said: 

'"Heaven saw fit to ordain that the electric spark of liberty should 
be conducted through you from the New World to the Old; and we, 
who are now here to perform this duty of patriotism, have all of us 
long ago received it in charge from our fathers to cherish your 
name and your virtues." 

And John Quincy Adams, in eulogy of him, upon his death, 
said : 

"To the moral principle of political action, the sacrifices of no 
other man were comparable to his. Youth, health, fortune ; the 
favor of his king; the enjoyment of ease and pleasure; even the 
choicest blessings of domestic felicity — he gave them all for toil and 
danger in a distant land and an almost hopeless cause ; but it was the 
cause of justice and of the rights of human kind. * * * Pronounce 
him one of the first men of his age, and you have not yet done him 
justice. Try him by that test to which he sought in vain to stimulate 
the vulgar and selfish spirit of Napoleon ; class him among the men 
who, to compare and seat themselves, must take in the compass of all 
ages ; turn back your eyes upon the records of time ; summon from 
the creation of the world to this day the mighty dead of every age 
and every clime — and where, among the race of merely mortal men, 
shall one be found who, as the benefactor of his kind, shall claim 
to take precedence of Lafayette." 



LAFAYETTE. 73 

Right worthily have our grateful people honored the man 
whose name is woven into the very warp and woof of the his- 
tory of the birth of the Republic. In the East and the West, 
in the North and the South, cities, towns, counties and even 
mountains have been named in his honor; and streets, squares, 
parks, and avenues in countless cities, towns and places all bear 
his honored name. A square in immediate frontage of the 
President's residence in this city was named for him — it is said 
by Washington himself. In it stand monuments in enduring 
bronze in commemoration of him and Rochambeau for the 
part which he and the French people took in the laying of the 
foundations of this great nation. 

Verily the memory of Lafayette abides in the minds and 
love for him abounds in the hearts of the American people. 
Imagination can picture his exalted spirit extending to us a 
perpetual salutation in the inspiring words of Bayard Taylor, 
written for another occasion : 

"I greet, with a full heart, the Land of the West! 

Whose Banner of Stars o'er a world is unrolled; 
Whose empire o'ershadows Atlantic's wide breast, 

And opes to the sunset its gateway of gold ! 
The land of the mountain, the land of the lake, 

And rivers that roll in magnificent tide — 
Where the souls of the mighty from slumber awake 

And hallow the soil for whose freedom they died ! 

Thou Cradle of Empire ! though wide be the foam 

That severs the land of my fathers and thee, 
I hear, from thy bosom, the welcome of home, 

For song has a home in the hearts of the Free. 
And long as thy waters shall gleam in the sun, 

And long as thy heroes remember their scars. 
Be the hands of thy children united as one, 

And Peace shed her light on thy Banner of Stars !" 



A NAVAL AFFAIR OF THE REVOLUTIONARY 

WAR 

Being the Romantic Story of Rebecca Chester, and its Sequel 
that of her Son Samuel Chester Reid, U. S. Navy. 

By Compatriot COLBY M. CHESTER, 
Rear-Admiral, U. S. Navy, (retired). 

(Read before the Society, December 20, 191 1.) 
New London, Conn., was one of the first settlements made 
in the country, having been founded in 1643 by John Winthrop. 
Through the natural advantages of its location it rapidly took 
an important position among the Colonies. At the time of the 
Revolutionary War it had acquired a very considerable trade 
with Europe and the West Indies, and ranked as one of the 
principal commercial ports of the country. 

The inhabitants of New London were a hardy seafaring race, 
vikings of the North, who left their native land to take part in 
the great movement for world expansion inaugurated early in 
the seventeenth century by the mother country, or were de- 
scendants of that intrepid band of pioneers who landed at 
Plymouth Rock in 1620. They made a livelihood either on the 
sea or in connection with the trade incident to its traffic, and 
were therefore well prepared to take a leading part in the 
Naval operations of the Colonies which began soon after the 
breaking out of the war. 

Besides keeping its quota for the Colonial Army full at all 
times, the war made further demands on the resources of New 
London in order to officer, and man, its regular Naval vessels, 
and to supply the crews for the private armed vessels com- 
posing the Volunteer Fleet of Connecticut, and of several 
other Colonies. But more than this: even the small home 
guard or local force left to protect the port were mostly seamen 
who fitted out small boats of all characters and descriptions to 
carry on acts of reprisal against the enemy's maritime forces ; 
and thus the place became, as stated in Calkins' "History of 



A NAVAL AFFAIR. 75 

New London," "a den of serpents to the British, constantly 
sending out its sloops and schooners, well manned by skillful 
and daring seamen, to harrass the boats and tenders of the 
enemy." 

Here, it may be said, the American Navy was founded. 
Under an act of the Colonial Congress, passed in the early part 
of the war, Naval expeditions were authorized, and the first of 
these was fitted out at New London as early as January, 1776. 
Commodore Hopkins was given command of the little fleet, 
composed of the Alfred, Columbus, Andrea-Doria and Cabot. 
Their armaments varied from fourteen to thirty-six guns. 
The expedition was undertaken with the utmost secrecy and 
destined to cruise along the Southern coast for the purpose of 
annoying the British fleet in that quarter. One captain and 
some of the officers were from New London, and, as writes 
Miss Calkins, "Several enterprising young seamen of the city 
were appointed midshipmen, and eighty of the crew were from 
the town and neighborhood." 

The fleet started early in February and returned to New 
London in April of the same year, after raiding the British 
port of New Providence, capturing seventy prisoners, more 
than eighty pieces of cannon and a large quantity of military 
and naval stores. 

The Commodore was landing his prisoners and stores in New 
London harbor at the time General Washington stopped over, 
while en route from Boston to New York, with the Army under 
his command. Washington's main purpose in coming to New 
London was to confer with Commodore Hopkins, then Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Navy, on Naval matters; for the 
former, early in the war, realized that the principal efiforts of 
the Colonists in the prosecution of the war should be to em- 
barass the lines of communication on which the enemy relied 
to reinforce their exhausted army and replenish their supplies, 
and to strike a blow at England's commercial power, which 
was then, as now, her preponderant resource, and which, if 
destroyed, would carry consternation into the home country. 



76 A NAVAL AFFAIR. 

Long Island Sound (into which flows the Thames river, 
whose mouth forms the harbor of New London), was of much 
importance to the British during the War, as, owing to the 
difficulty of entering the Sandy Hook channel, this gateway to 
the metropolis was almost habitually used by their vessels in 
carrying supplies to the headquarters of the British Army then 
in New York. The English had early taken possession of the 
Sound, seizing vessels of every description that came into their 
hands and fitting them out as privateers, thus rapidly clearing 
the Sound of every fishing smack and coaster belonging to the 
Colonists ; and thereby entailing great hardships on this 
maritime people. But in spite of this drain upon the resources 
of the place the inhabitants of the Thames river valley built 
and recaptured enough crafts to carry on a lively campaign in 
retaliation, and the frequent booming of cannon reverberating 
among its beautiful hills announced to the gladdened hearts of 
the despondent inhabitants the arrival of captured vessels. 

To show what the significance of this irregular war service 
was to the Colonists, it may be said that during the war no less 
than two hundred vessels, sixteen hundred guns, and seven 
thousand seven hundred men were furnished by the little State 
of Connecticut to the cause of American Independence, a force 
equal in numbers at least to the entire Navy of the United 
States during the decade 1870-80. The most of these vessels 
were fitted out at New London, and the records of the port 
indicate that the privateers issuing forth from this town cap- 
tured from the enemy their full share of the 600 craft that 
struck their flags to the American Naval Volunteer Force 
during the war, or about one prize for each unit of the Fleet. 

The acts of reprisal originating here were so numerous that 
"The Connecticut Gazette" of June 3, 1779, advertised an 
auction sale of one brig, three schooners and seven sloops, all 
prizes to "Yankee privateers"; and one week later, in the Court 
of Admiralty, a sale of eighteen prizes, all of which were taken 
during the month of May previous. 

Of course, not all the vessels engaged in this hazardous war- 



A NAVAI, AFFAIR. 'J'J 

fare were successful ; but how well these private armed vessels 
fitted out from New London did their part in bringing the War 
to its triumphant close may be inferred from the above sta- 
tistics. On the authority of Edgar S. Maclay, the Naval 
historian, it may be stated that the combined Naval forces of 
the American Colonies during the Revolutionary War, con- 
sisted of a force of over 40,000 men, a number nearly three- 
fold that of the Army at any time, and, together with 792 
vessels, carrying more than thirteen thousand guns and swivels. 
This force captured or destroyed about 800 British vessels, and 
took more prisoners than all our Armies put together, if we 
except those capitulating at Yorktown where the Army and 
Navy acted in combination. 

This outline of New London's activity during those thrilling 
and perilous times in our nation's history, forms a basis for the 
following little story which carries with it an added interest 
when we realize that the actors in this episode really lived and 
suffered. 

In Groton, a beautiful suburb on the eastern shore of the 
Thames river, vis-a-vis to New London, was enacted the 
romantic story of Rebecca Chester, a daughter of James 
Chester and Thankful (Packer) Chester. She was born in the 
homestead which stood 150 yards from the famous hecatomb 
of Benedict Arnold, Fort Griswold, the site of which had been 
deeded to the Government by her grandfather, Captain John 
Chester. She was the youngest child and only daughter. Her 
four brothers were all in the service of their country. 

Curiously, the date of Rebecca's birth, 1763, was just one 
hundred years after her great-grandfather Samuel Chester had 
planted a branch of the Chester geneological tree in the eastern 
part of Connecticut. As this ancestor's name was to be handed 
down to posterity as the given name of one of his decendants 
in connection with one of the brightest pages of American his- 
tory, it may be well to quote, from the records of New London 
and Montrille, which was then a part of the former town, the 
following : 



78 A NAVAL AFFAIR. 

"In 1663 Captain Samuel Chester, commander, owner and factor in 
the West India trade, arrived in Boston and located in New London. 
He was skilled in surveying as well as navigation, which was of 
great service to him in laying out lands in the new settlement. Trusty, 
faithful, just, loyal, yet persistent in the rights of the Colonies, he 
was esteemed a judicious and worthy man. 

"Being a sea captain in his early life, he had visited foreign ports, 
trading among the people of many climes with good success. He 
had a large landed estate partly on the east side of the river, now 
Groton, covering the ground where Fort Griswold and Groton monu- 
ment now stand; and also large tracts to the north and south of 
Groton Point on which his sons Abraham, John and Jonathan settled 
and reared large families. 

"Captain Chester also held a large tract of land in the North Parish 
of New London, now Montrille. A deed to Captain Chester was 
signed by Uncas (Indian Sachem) 13 June, 1683, of a grant of 
several thousand acres in Colchester. 

"He was much employed in land surveys, and in 1693 was one 
of the agents of the General Court to meet with a Committee from 
Massachusetts to renew and settle the boundaries between the two 
colonies." 

Captain John Chester, Samuel Chester's son, also held many 
positions of trust in the little Colony and bequeathed a goodly 
if not a munificent inheritance to his son, James Chester, the 
father of Rebecca. James Chester died in 1771, a short time 
before the Revolutionary War broke out. During this critical 
period Rebecca was left with her widowed mother to face the 
horrors and bear the trials surrounding them. She had been 
tenderly reared and was, at the height of the War, just budding 
into womanhood. Hardship and responsibility often develop 
the finest characters. The terrible struggle for life and liberty 
through which her country was passing made of that sweet 
timid girl one of those strong noble women who, no less than 
the men, were the saviors of our country. 

Rebecca's four brothers were each at his post of duty, all 
having been called to face on the ocean the severest test of their 
patriotism. During one of the numerous conflicts between the 
combatants on Long Island Sound, Caleb, the youngest sur- 
viving brother, was captured and sent to one of those New 



A NAVAL AFFAIR. 79 

York prison ships, where the atrocities and cruelties heaped 
upon its victims called forth the odium of our people, and dis- 
graced the mother country. 

Later, (in the year 1777), Caleb was released from confine- 
ment and permitted to return to his family. Shortly after his 
arrival in his native town he was stricken with small-pox in 
its most virulent form, and before his death, which soon fol- 
lowed, he stated with positive conviction that the virus of this 
terrible disease had been mixed with a drink (ostensibly offered 
in good fellowship), for the purpose of spreading the poison 
and depleting the Colony of New London. This patriotic little 
town had won the special hatred of her enemies for the many 
acts of daring and destruction committed against them on the 
sea ; and this barbarous act was followed still later by one of 
greater proportion that was to be a lasting disgrace to the 
mother country. The young man's mother and two brothers 
(who with others were protecting the town from impending 
invasion) also succumbed to the fatal disease, thus leaving 
Rebecca Chester, the heroine of our sketch, the sole survivor 
of the home circle. With such a family history at this, one 
can well understand that Rebecca had no love for the enemies 
of her country. 

Shortly following this sad event, October, 1778, an incident 
happened in the little colony of Groton that was to have a 
marked influence on the life of Rebecca Chester. While a 
British squadron of Admiral Lord Howe's fleet lay off in the 
Sound engaged in ravaging the New England coast, a boat 
expedition was sent out in charge of a young officer, Lieutenant 
John Reid, R. N., to capture whatever could be found of value 
to the crews of the ships, or which would injure the Colonists 
in any way. 

During this time the small force that was left to protect the 
town was not inactive. It planned a counter stroke. Accord- 
ingly, from Mystic, which lies a few miles to the eastward of 
Groton Long Point, a boat was fitted out with empty barrels, 
bags, etc.. to indicate merchandise, with a view to draw the 



80 A NAVAL AFFAIR. 

eyes, but not the fire, of the enemy. The boat, with two men 
laboring at the oars, set out towards Long Point, off which the 
squadron was stationed. As if overburdened with their load 
and seemingly unconscious that they were running into danger, 
the men proceeded until, not far from the Point which here 
extends some distance into the Sound, they espied a fully 
manned cutter approaching with all haste. The two Ameri- 
cans, apparently in great consternation, then pulled their boat 
for the shore and ran it high and dry at a point that had been 
previously selected. The English barge, with thirty or more 
men on board and Lieuteant Reid in command, rushed after 
the retreating boatmen, landing near where their craft had been 
beached. A few rods away lay concealed a military company 
under the command, by chance, of one of Rebecca Chester's 
relatives. The force, fully armed, arose from an advantageous 
position and fired at the barge, which was by this time aground, 
and the crew being unable to defend itself from this unexpected 
assault was forced to surrender. 

The Lieutenant standing in the stern of his boat folded his 
arms and declared that it was a "Yankee trick," but took his 
misfortune with as good grace as possible under the circum- 
stances. 

The prisoners were hastily assembled and marched to Fort 
Griswold under guard, and here Lieut. Reid was confined for a 
while as a hostage, but eventually released and given the free- 
dom of the place under parole. 

During his parole the young officer was privileged to mingle 
in the social life of the place, which he found most attractive. 
Lieutenant Reid was a descendant of Henry Reid, Earl of 
Orkney and Lord High Admiral to Robert Bruce III, King of 
Scotland, 1393, a young man in the splendid vigor and enthu- 
siasm of youth, enhanced by the brilliancy of his uniform and 
nature's liberal endowments, carrying with it all an elegance 
and ease of manner that stamped him at once as of noble birth 
and high breeding. 

Thus equipped it was not strange that his sudden appearance 



A NAVAL AFFAIR. 8l 

in the midst of this small and exclusive circle caused many a 
girlish heart to flutter. His associations with these brave 
struggling people (so in contrast to the vanity and hollowness 
of the court life to which he had been accustomed) awakened 
in him his higher and nobler nature. He had learned the 
tragedy of Rebecca Chester's life, and even before meeting her 
found his sympathies were enlisted towards those who had so 
suffered. 

A closer study into the growing discontent and the righteous- 
ness of their cause, especially the suffering and poverty en- 
tailed by heavy taxation, aroused his sense of justice. He felt 
the weight of the burden his King had put upon these per- 
secuted people. He realized, with a feeling of deepest loss, 
that the gap between the mother country and those who were 
fighting for the dearest thing in life (their liberty) was wider 
than the ocean and could never be bridged. Many doubts 
filled his troubled mind as to the justice of the cause of his 
country. While in this disturbed condition he was first privi- 
leged to meet Rebecca Chester. Although the acknowledged 
leader of the social life of the place, (not only through her near 
relationship to Col. Ledyard, the commander of the New 
London post, but through her personality which had won for 
her that position), the sorrows through which she had passed 
and the seeming hopelessness of her country's cause gave her 
no heart to mingle in the gaieties surrounding her. 

One evening, through his earnest and repeated solicitation, 
the Lieutenant was permitted to visit her home with a mutual 
and devoted friend. As they passed to the rear of the old 
Colonial mansion, guided by a gleam of light from the window, 
the young officer could not resist the temptation held out to him 
from within to gaze upon one of the loveliest domestic pictures 
pen or artist could portray. Rebecca was sitting at her spin- 
ning wheel all unconscious of the truant eyes that were feasting 
on her marvelous beauty. Her sad expression, giving a tone of 
dignity to the rare loveliness of her face, held the young man 
spellbound. He could but compare her to the cold, heartless 



82 A NAVAL AFFAIR. 

and artificial women he had known in English society. By the 
fireside sat her aged grandmother who shared with Rebecca the 
trials and hardships incident to the ravages the War had made 
upon this once distinguished home. 

As the officer and his companion entered, Rebecca, not at 
all disconcerted by the attractiveness of the stranger, or the 
brilliancy of the gold lace, greeted them with her usual hospi- 
tality and simple dignity. She at once recognized the young 
officer's identity, having heard much of the town gossip con- 
cerning him. 

An unusual feeling of embarrassment assailed the Lieutenant. 
He knew even at the threshold that Rebecca Chester was the 
one woman his soul was seeking. With this knowledge his 
effort to utter some commonplace platitudes hopelessly failed, 
and he remained a silent and uninteresting guest, only sum- 
moning courage at the eve of departure to ask permission for 
a second call. Other meetings followed, and the young en- 
thusiast lost no opportunity of showing Rebecca the admiration 
he felt. Thus swiftly and happily passed many days for the 
young officer until, overcome by the impetuosity of youth and 
the proverbial rashness of brass buttons, he boldly confessed 
his love. 

Rebecca's heart was still lacerated with the memory of the 
sufiferings she had endured from his countrymen, and although 
fascinated by his charm of manner and finding much pleasure 
in his society, she repelled the suggestion of uniting her fate 
with one whom she supposed to be in sympathy with the 
enemies of her persecuted people. She did not know (for he 
had scarcely acknowledged it to himself) the great sympathy he 
felt for her and the little colony — a feeling that had been ac- 
centuated by the knowledge of her personal sorrows. His 
urgent and repeated wooing brought forth from the young 
maiden a strong and emphatic "No, I can never marry a 
British officer." 

At this critical time occurred the terrible massacre of Fort 
Griswold, which made one of the blackest chapters in British 



A NAVAL AFFAIR. 83 

history. The storming and capture of Fort Griswold, and the 
tragic death of Col. Ledyard and its brave defenders, are too 
well known to all readers of history for repetition here. 
Rebecca's sensitive heart suffered with the fresh wounds 
caused by the wholesale and cruel slaughter of those she had 
known from childhood. As she gazed upon the scene of 
desolation and death in the early morning after this memorable 
day of wanton bloodshed, it seemed to Rebecca that her whole 
world had been swept away, the sun revealing such pictures of 
misery and suffering as to cause the stoutest hearts to faint, 
and her soul withered in agony and bitterness towards those 
who had caused such destruction of life and property. She 
saw the burning embers of the home of her beloved father, her 
grandfather and her great-grandfather, the enemy thus cutting 
oft' her last home tie; and far off, at the distant point on 
which the British troops had landed and embarked, the smoke 
was rising from the ashes of the buildings on an uncle's estate. 
The only real property that was left to any of that large family 
founded by Samuel Chester in Groton was the old Chester 
homestead, a mile to the southward of the Fort which had been 
used by the English troops during their occupation for com- 
missary purposes, and which, for this reason, perhaps, but 
more likely because of their hurried flight, the fire band was 
forgotten and the home of Thomas Chester escaped destruc- 
tion. But the hearts of that sorrowing and grief stricken 
household were indifferent and unconscious of the perils by fire 
that threatened them. Greater sorrow shadowed this thresh- 
hold. Two sons from the family circle had fallen, and one 
taken prisoner in this battle of terrible carnage, while the 
fourth and only remaining adult son of the Thomas Chester 
branch, distinguished for his bravery and destructive work to 
the enemy on the sea, was soon to die by disease contracted in 
a British prison-ship, thus leaving the parents desolate and 
heart broken. Rebecca Chester's sympathetic heart turned to 
her aged and suffering kinsmen, whose home like her own had 
been so desolated. Her sweet courageous spirit, which never 



84 A NAVAL AFFAIR. 

faltered, sustained and helped them endure the subsequent 
hardships and deprivation incident to the war. 

The house itself, built about 1660 and deeded to the grand- 
father of these three boys in 1732, (the year that Washington 
was born), still stands a prominent landmark for the hardy 
mariner who enters the port; and over the wide stone step at 
its entrance, under which the family treasures were hidden 
during the seige of the town, was told the story of Rebecca 
Chester to the present generation. 

The details of the Fort Griswold fight removed the few re- 
maining shackles from Lieut. Reid's eyes. Standing on Groton 
Heights, viewing the desolation and carnage before him, he 
bared his head and vowed, in the presence of the sad little circle 
of mourners about him, that he would henceforth give his 
fortune and his life if need be to defend a cause so just and 
righteous against such cowardice and cruelty. 

Our heroine has succumbed to the charms and fascinations of 
the gallant young convert, his sworn allegiance to her be- 
loved country breaking down the last barrier to the love which 
was already in her heart. 

The wedding bells are ringing. The old pastor, who has 
known and loved the beautiful young bride from childhood and 
watched the career of the man of her choice with pride, invokes 
a blessing on these two young lives with all the earnestness of 
his soul. Never was a benediction more sacred, a "God bless 
you" more sincere. 

Two sons blessed this union, the elder not surviving his boy- 
hood. To the younger, Samuel Chester Reid, born in Nor- 
wich, Conn., August 25, 1783, our country owes a debt of grati- 
tude. Thirty years from this date he became famous as Cap- 
tain Samuel Chester Reid of the privateer brig, "General Arm- 
strong," and is the hero of the sequel to this little romance. 



SOME UNDERLYING CAUSES OF THE 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 

An Outline and Discussion from the Present Day Viewpoint. 

By Compatriot SELDEN M. ELY, A. M., LL. M. 
(Read before the Society, December 20, 1911.) 

You are so accustomed to hear me, as your necrologist, 
analyze dead subjects that possibly you may bear with me 
while, in another capacity, I treat the subject "An Outline and 
Discussion of Some of the Underlying Causes of the American 
Revolution," which our honored President has resurrected and 
assigned to me. You have just learned that I am not respon- 
sible for appearing before you; therefore, in advance I ask 
you to be lenient. In law, I beUeve, irresponsibility entitles 
one to clemency, or at least to incarceration in a different type 
of institution. But to the extent to which I am personally 
guilty, before you judge and commit me, I am sure the teach- 
ings of history will prompt you to allow me to plead my cause. 

Though I shall endeavor to detain you not more than thirty 
minutes re-enacting the causes of the Revolution, yet, should 
you become restless, remember that your forefathers endured 
oppression for nigh a hundred years before they rebelled; 
should you feel yearnings for the refectory below, remember 
how the soldiers suffered for food a long winter at Valley 
Forge ; should you become bored, I pray you to recall how the 
patriot dead were bored even with bullets on numerous and 
more lengthy occasions. Finally, recall that for all those hard- 
ships your forebears are honored for their patience even to this 
day. Seriously, it is with misgivings that I stand here with a 
paper on the subject assigned; for in the very nature of the 
case you are a peculiarly intelligent and critical audience. 

The causes of war are social or economic, or both. Excep- 
tions prove the rule, but the American Revolution is no excep- 
tion. Social, as used here, of course embraces psychological 



86 AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

and religious differences, and might also include economic; but 
economic will signify in this address material welfare or gain. 

England for over a century prior to the Revolution was 
dominated in its legislative and executive acts by the mer- 
cantile school of economists. Such countries as Italy, France, 
and England looked enviously upon Spain where wealth was 
pouring in from her mines in the New World. They sought 
to discover how they too might secure gold and silver. One 
Antonio Serra, an Italian, in 1613, wrote a book entitled "A 
Brief Discourse on the Possible Means of Causing Gold and 
Silver to Abound in Kingdoms where there are no Mines." It 
was believed by Serra and his school that this means consisted 
in the sale of manufactured articles abroad and the develop- 
ment of home manufactures and foreign trade by a system of 
regulations to which the name of mercantile system has been 
applied. Follow the acts of Britain relating to colonial trade 
with this theory in mind. Bear in mind also that it was not 
until 1776 that Adam Smith's marvelous book entitled "An 
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" 
appeared. Remember, too, that Smith was a Scotchman. 
Smith recognized the legitimate place of industry in the crea- 
tion of wealth. But he develops logically the existence of 
natural economic laws, and the let alone {laissez faire) rule of 
practical conduct earlier introduced by the French. He was 
also the pioneer in the historical school who observe facts and 
profit by the lessons of experience. Since the days of Smith 
and the Revolution England has been wiser in her colonial 
policy. On the other hand in the colonies Benjamin Franklin, 
by his practical philosophy popularized by his wit, had taught 
the people the value of industry as well as economy. He was 
the first great American conservationist. Locke, and Rous- 
seau (then in the height of his powers), were influencing the 
colonial leaders, especially Adams and Jefferson. Rousseau 
taught in his "Social Contract" that laws are not binding 
unless agreed upon by the people. In other words, he believed 
in a sovereign people instead of a sovereign monarch. 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 87 

Consideration must be given how the American colonists 
were prepared to demand their rights in industry and property 
as taught by Franklin, and their political rights as taught by 
Jefferson. To do this, brief consideration will be given to the 
colonists as a people, to the colonial wars, to the acts of the 
King and parliament, and the acts of the American people 
themselves. 

The American State owes its origin to colonizing activities 
in which the British, Dutch, Swedes, French, and Spaniards 
bore a share, and which were continued for a period of more 
than two centuries. All of the European nations which were 
interested in colonization shared in the enterprise, and the 
population of the region was therefore cosmopolitan from the 
outset. But the British, especially after 1660, secured a con- 
trolling influence to such an extent that the history of the period 
can properly be regarded as the record of an experiment in 
British colonization. 

British colonization originated chiefly in private initiative. 
From this fact developed the trend toward self-government, 
which was fundamental and controlling in the history of the 
British on the American continent. But to an extent the 
tendencies which favored self-government were counteracted 
by the influence of the British Crown and parliament. The 
activities of Crown and parliament were directed toward the 
securing of imperial interests and of that degree of subordi- 
nation and conformity which, in States that have developed 
from Roman and feudal origins, attaches to the condition of 
colonies or dependencies. 

Among the colonists the trend toward local independence and 
self-government was in harmony with the spirit of the English. 
Neither was it lacking among the other nationalities repre- 
sented in the colonies, especially the French. But in the case 
of the British it was greatly strengthened by the fact that the 
colonies were founded by private initiative, the government 
legalizing the efforts of the proprietors, adventurers, and 
planters, but leaving them in many cases almost wholly to them- 



88 AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

selves. A variety of motives, economic and social, contributed 
to the founding of these colonies, and people correspondingly 
different in type came to inhabit them. As they differed from 
one another so their descendants came to differ from the 
Europeans out of the midst of whom they had come. Re- 
moteness and difficulties of communication confirmed and per- 
petuated the tendency toward independence. Somewhat simi- 
lar conditions controlled intercolonial relations, kept the colon- 
ists apart from one another, and checked efforts at co-operation. 
Thus it was that the causes which confirmed the colonists in 
the spirit of independence toward the mother country at the 
same time made them jealous of any external authority. How- 
ever, New England developed into a clearly defined territory 
under Puritan dominion, as was clearly shown by the organi- 
zation in 1643 of the New England Confederacy. The intense 
Puritan spirit, with its century and a half of pronounced in- 
dependence of polity and temper, was represented outside of 
New England, especially on the frontiers of the provinces from 
Pennsylvania southward, by the large Scotch-Irish population. 
Because of their more heterogeneous races and sects the middle 
colonists were not so unified ; yet they as well as the southern 
provinces were dominated by such patriots as Dickinson, 
Carrol, Mason, and Rutledge. But throughout the great strug- 
gle and its preliminaries the people of New England and the 
people of Virginia exhibited a unity and decision in action 
which set a splendid example, though their prototypes in Eng- 
land differed to an extent as Roundheads and Cavaliers. 

Such was the type of people who co-operated with England 
in the Intercolonial Wars. Though these wars represented in 
themselves campaigns for the control of an empire, yet they 
cannot be omitted from the causes of the Revolution. The 
troubles between the French and most of the Indians on one 
side and the English and colonists on the other were nearly 
continuous from 1689 to 1763, or a period of seventy-five years. 

In the first of these struggles known as King William's War 
the settlers suffered from frightful massacres on the part of 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 89 

the Indians. However, the New England colonies sent out a 
fleet which captured Port Royal, the French stronghold in Nova 
Scotia. Imagine the feeling of the colonists when at the close 
of the war the conquered territory, including Port Royal, was 
restored to the French. 

Queen Anne's War soon followed, and again the Indians 
were turned loose to pillage and kill. Though the colonists 
failed to take Quebec, they again captured Port Royal or Ann- 
apolis, Acadia, Hudson Bay Territory, and Newfoundland, 
which represented a distinct gain. 

Then came King George's War. This conflict put an end 
to the French pirates who had been plundering the New Eng- 
land fishing fleets, and gave the colonial troops confidence in 
themselves, for they aided the British fleet materially in cap- 
turing Louisburg which the French had then made the most 
powerful fort in the world. Very strangely the English gave 
Louisburg back to the French at the close of the war; and 
again, as in the case of Port Royal, this did not increase the 
admiration of the colonists for the mother country. 

In the next or French and Indian War, France lost domin- 
ion in the New World. The fundamental reason was the fact 
that, though the French policy had encouraged emigration to 
America, yet the king would not permit these young men to 
become landowning farmers; so they drifted about as vaga- 
bonds or Indian traders and became known as coureurs de 
bois, forest rangers. Hence, in this decisive war the French 
soldiers, though operating in the marvelously fertile valleys of 
the Great Lakes and Ohio, were dependent upon the home 
country for food. Hence, when the militia under Colonel 
Bradstreet captured the main depot of supplies at Fort Fron- 
tenac the chain of French forts became demoralized. Fort 
Duquesne was now easy for Washington, and it thereafter be- 
came Pittsburg in honor of that great friend of America, Wil- 
liam Pitt. There remained nothing but Louisburg and Quebec. 
The one capitulated to Amherst and Boscawen, and the other 
to the immortal Wolfe. 



go AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

Unfortunately the British regulars and the colonial militia 
did not get on well together in this conflict. Then George III 
and the Grenville ministry made the prodigious error, in the 
Quebec Act of 1774, of declaring the territory west of the 
headwaters of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, 
Indian country. They even commanded the settlers already 
beyond this line to withdraw. Here again the colonists were 
incensed by being deprived of the fruits of what they rightly 
considered their victory. On the other hand, soldiers and mili- 
tary leaders were trained for future retribution. The long war 
made public knowledge of the manly bearing and military gen- 
ius of George Washington. The "embattled farmers" at Con- 
cord were, many of them, more than farmers; they were the 
scarred veterans from Louisburg and Quebec, and had no great 
fear of the "red coats" whose equal they knew they were. 

The English Crown almost exclusively managed colonial 
affairs except during the Commonwealth when parliament was 
the source of all activity, legislative and executive. However, 
parliament passed about one hundred acts relating to the colo- 
nies and some of them must be studied in their relation to the 
acts of resistance on the part of the colonies. 

The interest of trade, dominated by the theory of "mercan- 
tilism" more than anything else, controlled the colonial policy 
of England. This theory required that imports and exports 
must be through English ports. The church and her interests 
also demanded attention. Severe restrictive measures were 
passed to prevent the growth of manufactures, specially wool, 
hats, and iron. Courts of vice-admiralty, with authority to try 
cases without a jury, were established in the colonies; and just 
before the close of the 17th century they were given jurisdic- 
tion over the Acts of Trade, a power which they did not have at 
home. By the abolition of assemblies and the union of the 
colonies on a large scale, James II did violence to the strong- 
est traditions of the colonies. The New Englanders objected to 
the levy of taxes by prerogative, feared the unsettlement of land 



AMERICAN REVOI.UTION. QI 

titles, loss of town government, and the establishment of An- 
glican worship. 

Early in the French wars the British government prescribed 
quotas of both men and money to be raised by the colonists. 
The colonial assemblies resorted to the issue of "bills of credit," 
to which they gave legal tender quality, but for which they made 
inadequate provision for redemption. 

This resulted in great confusion and loss to all, and among 
the greatest losers were the British merchants. The colonial 
executives, representing the Crown, naturally vetoed additional 
bills of credit; and this led the assemblies to devise means to 
coerce the governors, which they did quite effectively by with- 
holding their salaries. Many measures were used by the colo- 
nies to liberalize their constitutions during the French wars. 
Many a precedent was then set which was utilized later in the 
struggle with the mother country. 

In the later stages, especially of the last inter-colonial war 
in the operations before Louisburg and Quebec, the colonies 
contributed loyally to the result. 

The conquest of the French removed the sense of dependence 
on Great Britian for military aid which the northern colonies 
in particular had felt previously. On the other hand, England 
was tremendously burdened by debts incurred in the prosecu- 
tion of the French and Indian Wars, but at the same time was 
fired with an ambition for imperial expansion. This resulted 
in the Sugar Act of the Grenville Ministry, 1764. The aid 
of the navy was directly invoked in the enforcement of the trade 
laws. Parliament prohibited the bestowment of a legal tender 
quality on colonial bills of credit, but the colonies regarded it 
as a blow to a necessary system of credit. The Act of Trade, 
1673, and the Molasses Act, 1733, were two early instances of 
the exercise by parliament of the right to tax the colonies. The 
Molasses Act was never enforced because it was so absurd. 

Had the Sugar Act been enforced, a clear and decisive pre- 
cedent in favor of this right would have been established. But 
the British government immediately committed itself to a still 



92 AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

more significant measure, and the two acts combined caused an 
outburst of protest and resistance from the colonists. The 
second statute referred to was the Stamp Act, and British au- 
thorities quote Ex-Governor William Keith, of Pennsylvania, 
and Governor George Clinton, of New York, as having argued 
for it. The Stamp Act was passed by parliament in 1765, al- 
most without debate and with scarcely a thought that it would 
be resisted. They did not seem to realize that it was a purely 
fiscal measure and not allied to the former acts for the regula- 
tion of trade. The legal theory upon which the act was based 
was that of the unqualified sovereignty of parliament as the 
representative body for the whole empire and that its authority, 
if it chose to use it, was as effective for purposes of taxation as 
for regulation of trade or other objects of legislation. But 
never before, during the century and a half of colonial history, 
had the taxing power been so unqualifiedly exercised or with 
such trenchant force as by this statute. Furthermore, this and 
the Sugar Act came at a time when the consciousness of power 
on the part of the colonists was at its height, because of the 
defeat and expulsion of the French, for which the colonists 
claimed the chief credit. Moreover, at the time when the policy 
was initiated, George III had undertaken to crush the Whig 
party and to revive the latent prerogatives of his office. This 
resulted in the formation of a series of coalition ministries. 
England really was not a State, for it was at social war with 
itself. Vacillation and uncertainty were thus introduced into 
the colonial policy of the government. The royal policy of 
King George also brought into the public service in England an 
unusually large group of inferior men who persistently blund- 
ered in the treatment of colonial questions. The stubborn self- 
will of the King became the only available substitute for broad 
and intelligent statesmanship. 

Opposition to the Stamp Act was shown in all of the colonies 
by acts of their legislatures in the calling of a Congress at New 
York, and in the activity of organized bands under the title 
of "Sons of Liberty" in all of the seaports and some of the 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 93 

smaller interior towns. These bands were organized in opposi- 
tion to the importation of British, or even foreign, goods and in 
favor of frugality and home manufactures. Newspapers sprang 
into activity, and notable pamphlets were published in defense 
of the colonial cause. The dramatic but logical eloquence of 
Patrick Henry forced five resolutions through the Virginia 
House of Burgesses. Two others, which threatened resistance 
and the coercion of any who should venture to uphold the home 
government, failed to pass, but the whole seven were published 
broadcast throughout the colonies. The Massachusetts House 
of Representatives, led by James Otis, proposed the calling of a 
general congress. Otis had already distinguished himself by 
radical opposition to the measures of the government, especially 
in the case against "Writs of Assistance" which was argued 
before the superior court in 1761. These writs violated the 
English theory that a man's home is his castle, no matter how 
humble. Samuel Adams so developed the town meeting in 
Boston that it was able to overawe the government ; and 
throughout New England the town and its organization served 
well the purposes of opposition. 

It is not generally recognized, yet it is a fact, that the discus- 
sion in parliament over the repeal of the Stamp Act developed 
the first serious consideration of the Constitution of the British 
Empire, and the first serious consideration by that body of 
colonial affairs in America. The foremost constitutional law- 
yer of his day. Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of England, sum- 
med up the matter of the rights of parliament in these words : 
"There can be no doubt but that the inhabitants of the colonies 
are as much represented in parliament as the greater part of 
the people of England. A member of parliament chosen for 
any borough represents not only the constituents and inhabi- 
tants of that place, but he represents the city of London, and all 
the commons of the land, and the inhabitants of all the colonies 
and dominions of Great Britain." It was true that England 
did not have popular or territorial representation as it had 
grown up in the colonies where practically every "freeman" or 



94 AMERICAN REV^OLUTION. 

landowner was an elector. On the other side the arguments of 
Pitt are familiar, while Camden even in the House of Lords 
said: "My Lords, you have no right to tax America. The 
natural rights of man and the immutable laws of Nature are 
all with that people." 

Attached to the repeal of the Stamp Act was the offensive 
Declarative Act affirming the right of taxation; hence the 
pacifying influence of the repeal was lost. Then under the 
tutelage of King George there followed the so-called Town- 
shend Acts regulating trade in America and the leaving on of 
the trouble-making Tea tax. Smuggling resulted, and the 
schooner "Gaspee" episode was the outcome. The Quebec Act 
has been referred to, but elementary history does not give suffi- 
cient weight to its possibilities. It legalized a particular relig- 
ion, made no provision for an assembly in that vast province, 
and was intended to prevent the movement of population over 
the mountains. The special acts relating to Massachusetts and 
to Boston were particularly offensive to the other colonies, 
having the opposite effect from what their defenders in Eng- 
land thought. These acts closed the port of Boston, abolished 
the popular assembly in Massachusetts, local selection of jury- 
men, and trial by jury at home in many cases. The military 
governor, Gage, was placed in control. 

Historians have taught hatred of the English by inference, 
if not in words. Do not, however, leave the discussion with the 
thought that the War for Independence was a conflict of Amer- 
icans against Englishmen, of American Anglo-Saxons against 
European Anglo-Saxons. It was a bloody strife between 
parties, Whigs and Radicals, in the colonies, in England and 
from elsewhere, against Tories and Loyalists in England and 
America. But the Tories in England had no such Englishmen in 
their ranks as had the Whigs in Cartwright and Fox and Cam- 
den and Burke and Pitt. Individual liberty won against the 
ideas of Bute who educated George III in Bolingbroke's theory 
that the King should "put himself at the head of his people in 
order to govern, or more properly, to subdue all parties." 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 95 

George III was certainly not a Patriot King exercising an "en- 
lightened despotism." Hate only such as he. The King and his 
small brained "friends" wished simply to "exploit" the colonies, 
yet they had warning. Montesquieu in 1730, and later d'Argen- 
son, then Kalm the Swede, and Vergennes at the treaty follow- 
ing the French and Indian War, all gave due and timely warn- 
ing. Even William Smith, an American, in his "History of 
New York" published in 1756, predicted independence. 

Prophecy based on truth will be fulfilled, yet even at the 
time of Gage the Tories could not read the "handwriting on 
the wall," though there had occurred, as by-products of the 
conditions, the "Boston Massacre" and fashionable "Tea 
Parties" as far south as Charleston. The "coffin" incident 
transpired at Portsmouth, while the "Sons of Liberty" every- 
where committed many offensive acts. Adams, Otis, and 
Henry were thundering fiery yet logical addresses. Later they 
were aided by the brilliant Hamilton. Extra-legal assemblies, 
conventions, and committees were in existence everywhere. 
Flint was picked at Lexington. The colonies were aroused — 
but were they impotent ? 

The New England Confederacy, as far off as 1643, had 
taught the colonies the value of union against a common foe. 
The Albany Congress, the Stamp Act Congress, Committees of 
Correspondence, and the First Continental Congress, had made 
the people conscious that, notwithstanding their jealousies, 
they could co-operate in matters of mutal public interest. They 
were possessed of trained soldiers, statesmen, and diplomats ; 
and, most vital of all, held in the main a political theory in 
common, namely the sovereignty of the people. 

The second Continental Congress gave them a government; 
faulty to be sure, yet a government, for it assumed such pre- 
rogatives. Washington was named commander-in-chief ; and 
when he accepted with the words: "Since the Congress de- 
sires, I will enter upon the momentous duty and exert every 
power I possess in their service, and for the support of the 
glorious cause," the controversy had passed beyond the stage 



96 AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

of causes, and beyond the stage of local disturbances ; it was 
now a Confederacy in rebellion. The outcome, though it is 
the first case in history where a dependency freed itself from 
such a powerful parent country, is not a part of this paper ; but 
considering the underlying causes there could be but one issue. 
The wrongs and evils — as they ultimately do — resulted in a 
theory by which they might be ameliorated. Causes make 
ideas, and thinking makes men. Men imbued by conditions 
with the right and necessity for "civil liberty" won the Amer- 
ican Revolution. 

"God give us men ! , suncrowned, who live above the fog 

In public duty and in private thinking." 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 

By Compatriot G. C. KNIFFIN, Lieut.-Colonel, U. S. Vols. 

(Submitted, but reading prevented by press of business at the last 
meetings of the Society.) 

Military prowess has in all ages commanded the enthusiastic 
plaudits of mankind. From the earliest dawn of history, down 
through the ages, display of martial valor, whether in conquest 
or defense, has formed the theme of song and story. Trium- 
phal arches have been erected to perpetuate the memory of con- 
quering heroes, while the heroic deeds of men who have sur- 
rendered their lives in defense of home and fatherland remain 
through coming generations enshrined in the hearts of their 
countrymen. While it is true that the element of personal cour- 
age must be the prominent factor in the character of a com- 
manding general, it is not all that is required ; a pirate or bandit 
may be a man of conspicuous bravery. Love of country and 
exalted devotion to duty form the granite foundation upon 
which the character of a great soldier must be built. 

It is a pleasant task to record the deeds of a soldier who was 
the embodiment of every manly attribute and soldierly quality 
— a leader of men, true, strong and brave. Such was General 
George Rogers Clark. 

The story of his triumphs over the British and Indians 
reads like a romance. But there were no newspapers in that 
remote wilderness, with correspondents at headquarters to 
herald the heroic deeds of this warrior ; and, but for the re- 
cognition by the Governor of Virginia of his services in rescu- 
ing the great West from the grasp of the British, his name and 
fame would have remained sunken in the obscurity which 
covers like a cloud the deeds of his brave and devoted contem- 
poraries, the pioneers of Ohio and Kentucky. 

Who has not heard of Bunker Hill, whose patriot dead are 
embalmed in the memory of every Son and Daughter of the 
American Revolution? 



98 CLARK. 

What boy's heart has not thrilled at the tale of Paul Revere's 
wild ride, and the bridge at Concord, where "the embattled 
farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world?" 

History has been written by Eastern writers, and the most 
trival incidents have been magnified, in the telling, into deeds 
of magnificent heroism. 

Events like Putnam's ride and the capture of Andre which 
had they occurred west of the Alleghanies would never have 
been heard of, have obscured the history of the conquest of a 
territory twice as large as all the New England States together. 

While the aroused colonists were girding themselves for a 
war with the mother country, the issue of which could not be 
foretold, and our forefathers were flocking to the standard oi 
Washington, the country west of the Alleghanies was a track- 
less wilderness over which Indian tribes held disputed sway. 
In the territory which later became the county of Kentucky, the 
pioneers held precarious footing. It was in very fact the dark 
and bloody ground. Early settlers in that fruitful land held 
their lives by a feeble tenure. Bands of Indians roamed 
through the forests fighting in defense of their favorite hunt- 
ing ground, while the whites were equally determined to con- 
quer it. It is probable that the acquisition of the Indian lands 
might have been peaceably made by treaty, such as that made 
by William Penn in Philadelphia, but for the presence in their 
midst of the French first, and later the English, at whose insti- 
gation the tomahawk and firebrand were carried into all the 
frontier settlements. 

Early in 1756, France formed an alliance with Austria, 
Russia, and Sweden, and England with Frederick the Great. 
England declared war, the influence of which extended through- 
out the civilized world. At the end of seven years, England 
gained Canada and all the territory claimed by the French east 
of the Mississippi river, save Louisiana, which by a secret 
treaty had been ceded to Spain. 

In the treaty of Paris, 1763, France surrendered the last of 
her possessions in the New World. Bancroft says : 



CLARK. 99 

"The seven years' war, which doubled the debt of England, in- 
creasing it to £700,000,000, was begun by her for the acquisition of 
the Ohio Valley. She achieved that conquest, but not for herself." 

Having obtained possession of so vast a territory at such 
a price, what wonder that she defended it to the utmost of her 
powxr. The pohcy of Great Britain has always been to sup- 
plement her armed forces in all parts of the world by assimilat- 
ing the native warriors. But this powerful auxiliary in the 
Mississippi Valley was slow in acknowledging the supremacy 
of the English, for the Indians had been treated kindly by the 
French, and were unable to comprehend the surrender of the 
territory, of which they were the virtual masters, to an inferior 
force. The Indians, jealous of their rights of eminent domain, 
insisted upon a line beyond which civilization should not ex- 
tend. To pacify them instructions were issued by the King in 
1763, forbidding grants of land by Colonial governments beyond 
the bounds of their respective governments. But this precau- 
tion came too late. In the Northwest was heard the voice of 
Pontiac crying : "Why, says the Great Spirit, do you suffer these 
dogs in red clothing to enter your country and take the lands 
I have given you ? Drive them from it ! drive them ! drive 
them ! drive them ! When you are in distress I will help you." 
And the widespread disaffection among the Indians made them 
willing listeners to the preacher of the new crusade. 

The blow fell without warning upon the unsuspecting whites. 
The frontier forts from Detroit to Fort Pitt were assailed, and 
nine fell in one day. Along the Pennsylvania and Virginia 
frontiers the streams ran red with blood, and 20,000 settlers 
were driven from their homes in western- Virginia. The forts 
at Niagara, Detroit and Pittsburg held out, and in the follow- 
ing year, 1764, the expeditions of Bradstreet and Bonquet 
brought the Indians to terms. 

In 1768, by the terms of a treaty with the Iroquois, Dela- 
wares, and Shawnees at Fort Stanwix, the boundary line, be- 
yond which the whites agreed not to settle, was fixed at the 
mouth of the Tennessee, thence up the Ohio and Alleghany to 



100 CLARK. 

Kittanning, and northward to the Susquehanna: thus granting 
to the English a title to western Pennsylvania, western Vir- 
ginia and Kentucky, so far as the Indian representatives could 
do so. But the mass of the Indians did not feel themselves 
bound by this treaty and another bloody struggle upon the bor- 
der was precipitated by the assassination of the family of Lo- 
gan, the Cayuga chieftain, a friend to the whites. At the battle 
of Point Pleasant which followed, although the Indians were 
defeated, fears of their vengeance drove most of the pioneers 
back from the frontiers. 

During the protracted conflict between the French and the 
English the Indians had borne a prominent part. 

In the War of the Revolution, alliances between the English 
and the Indians were naturally formed as the animosity of the 
latter was directed against the gradually encroaching frontiers- 
man to a far greater extent than toward the military. It ap- 
peared to them that the Red Coats weie the strong arm of the 
King, who had fixed a boundary line beyond which the white 
settler should not pass. An advantage that the English pos- 
sessed was that they were represented by the same persons who 
had for thirty years exerted a great personal as well as politi- 
cal influence over the savages. They inflamed the Indians 
against the settlers by recounting the wrongs they had suffered 
at the hands of the white settlers, for there was scarcely a tribe 
in the Mississippi Valley that was not embittered by the mem- 
ory of a great wrong perpetrated by the Colonists. In 1774 
all of the territory east of the Mississippi and north of the 
Ohio had been by order of the King annexed to the Province 
of Quebec. 

Both parties to the Revolutionary War were early in ap- 
proaching the Indians. The Massachusetts Congress appeal- 
ed to the Iroquois in April, 1775, to aid them or stand neutral. 
In the following June, the Virginia House of Burgesses sent an 
agent to the western tribes. In August, a congress was held 
at Albany to confer with the New York tribes, and in October 
a meeting was held at Pittsburg to treat with the Senecas, Dela- 



Cr,ARK. lOI 

wares and Shawnees ; but in each case the Americans found that 
the Enghsh had preceded them and gained the hearts of the 
tribes. 

It was at this juncture that George Rogers Clark appeared 
upon the scene. Born in Albermarle County in November, 
1752, he was in the prime of manly vigor. His early life was 
spent as a surveyor, a service which at that day required the 
highest qualifications of heart and brain. A brief visit to 
Kentucky convinced him that the mere guarding the settlements 
against the savage incursions of the Indians could only result 
in wholesale massacre of the white settlers. 

In June, 1776, he was elected by a convention held at Har- 
rodsburg, Kentucky, a member of the Virginia Legislature. Al- 
though the election had no legal force, a fact well known to 
Clark, who had not sought it, he accepted it as giving him 
standing as an agent for the border community, and repaired at 
once to Virginia, where he succeeded in obtaining five hundred 
pounds of powder and the formation of Kentucky as a county 
of Virginia. 

The following year was characterized by a more determined 
effort on the part of the Indians and English, and all but three 
of the strongest posts in Kentucky were broken up or destroyed. 

The good results of Clark's mission to Virginia was soon 
seen by the arrival of meager but acceptable reinforcements; 
but he had not settled down into inactivity. His mind was busy 
with larger plans, and observing the advantage the English 
derived from the possession of the Illinois forts, he conceived 
the plan of striking a powerful blow in defense of Kentucky 
by the capture of these posts. Information obtained from spies 
that he had sent out during the summer of 1777 convinced 
Clark of the practicability of the proposed enterprise. Accord- 
ingly in August he set out for WilHamsburg, Virginia, to sub- 
mit his project to the Governor and Council of Virginia. The 
adoption of his plan carried with it authority to enlist five hun- 
dred men. He left Williamsburg, January 18, 1778, and by 
the end of the month had recruited the required force. But 



102 CLARK. 

he was met by an obstacle that would have deterred a less de- 
termined man. Leading men on the frontier, not knowing the 
object of the expedition, and desiring to retain the strong able- 
bodied men in Clark's command to guard the settlements, used 
every means in their power to induce his men to desert. In 
this they were so far successful as to reduce his force to less 
than two hundred men. He says in a letter to Honorable 
George Mason, written November 19, 1779: 

"I was sensible of the impression it would have on many to be 
taken near a thousand miles from the body of their country to 
attack a people five times their number, and merciless savages their 
allies, all determined enemies to us." 

Acting under instructions issued by the Governor of Virginia 
to Lieutenant-Colonel Clark, the men were enlisted for three 
months after their arrival in Kentucky. His secret orders 
were to enlist five hundred men and organize his regiment in 
companies of fifty, and with this force to "attack the British 
force at Kaskaskia." The point against which the expedition 
was projected was the capture of a considerable French settle- 
ment and the oldest permanent European settlement in the 
valley of the Mississippi. It was foimded by the French in 
1700. Two years later Vincennes was founded, and for three 
quarters of a century these two places had been the principal 
trading posts with the Indians. 

Within the next few years Fort Chartres was erected on the 
Mississippi, and about it sprang up the villages of New Char- 
tres, Prairie du Rocher, and Cahokia. It was from Fort Char- 
tres, during the ascendancy of the French power, that forces 
went out to attack George Washington at Fort Necessity, de- 
stroyed Fort Granville sixty miles from Philadelphia, and de- 
feated Major Grant at Fort Du Quesne. Aided by their 
staunch adherents, the Indians, they had carried destruction to 
the American settlements and had proven themselves on several 
battle-fields a foe to be dreaded. Though transferred by treaty 
to the English in 1763, this fort was the last place in North 
America to lower the white ensign of the Bourbon King, and 



CLARK. 103 

it was not until 1765 that the British obtained possession of this 
remote citadel. Pontiac the unwavering friend of the French 
took upon himself unaided by his foreign allies the defense of 
the fort against the victorious English, whom he hated most 
cordially. He held it until finally defeated, when an English 
garrison was established and held it until one day in 1772 it 
was swept away by a flood. 

With his force of five hundred men, reduced by desertion to 
one hundred and fifty-three, Lieutenant-Colonel Clark set out 
on the 26th of June, 1778, upon the expedition to capture the 
forts at Kaskaskia and Vincennes. Before him was a trackless 
wilderness and an implacable foe of unknown strength. In 
his letter to George Mason, he says : 

"I knew that my case was desperate, but the more I reflected on 
my weakness the more I was pleased with the enterprise and elevated 
with the thought of the great service we should do our country in 
some measure doing away with the Indian wars on our frontier." 

His reUance for success was not altogether in the fighting 
qualities of his little force, for in another place he says : 

"I was certain that with five hundred men I could take Illinois, 
and by treating the inhabitants as fellow-citizens and showing them 
that I meant to protect them, rather than treat them like a conquered 
people, bind them to our interests." 

It will be seen that his plan was based upon a force of five 
hundred men. That he embarked upon the expedition with 
less than one-third that number shows that he relied greatly 
upon his ability to win the favor of the French and Indians. 
After leaving Corn Island opposite Louisville the gallant party 
floated down the Ohio to the mouth of the Tennessee, where it 
disembarked to prepare for a march by land aided greatly by 
a spy named Simon Kenton. They reached a point within three 
miles of Kaskaskia on the evening of the fourth of July. The 
fort was entered by them in the night by a postern gate left open 
on the river side, and in two hours the town was captured with- 
out bloodshed. The commandant, Rocheblane, was taken pris- 



104 CLARK. 

oner and sent to Williamsburg with his papers showing a 
league between the British and Indians. On the 6th, Cahokia 
fell in like manner without a blow. 

Clark says in his report: 'Tost St. Vincent, a town about 
the size of Williamsburg, was the next object in my view." 
But at this juncture of affairs new difficulties arose to vex the 
sorely beset commander. The term for which the troops had 
enlisted had expired, and fifty of them refused to re-enlist. 
Clark succeeded in inducing about one hundred to enlist for 
eight months, as he says, "through great presents and prom- 
ises." By the exercise of diplomacy, for which Clark was dis- 
tinguished, the horror and detestation of the French citizens 
had given place to enthusiastic loyalty to their new commander. 
But the French peasantry were not a warlike people. For gene- 
rations they had dwelt in this Arcadia undisturbed by the savage 
war whoop that had sounded along the frontier of Pennsylva- 
nia, western Virginia and Kentucky, and they still held the 
power of the British in great respect. Nothing but a show of 
power on the part of the invaders could confirm them in their 
new attitude and secure their co-operation in the plans of 
Clark for the permanent occupation of the country and detach 
the Indians from the British interests. The French had shown 
their faith in Clark by their works. Some accompanied him to 
Cahokia to assure the citizens of the hearty co-operation of 
Kaskaskia. Others carried Clark's proclamation to Vincennes, 
and by their representation secured the voluntary allegiance 
of that post. A sufficient number of the citizens volunteered 
to complete the two companies that remained with Clark. The 
flag of the Colonists now waved triumphantly over the Illinois 
posts but the Indians had thus far remained aloof, confused by 
the friendly bearing of the French and Spaniards towards the 
invaders. It was now that the transcendent genius for diplom- 
acy in Clark bore fruit. In September, influenced by the French, 
they entered into negotiations with Clark at Cahokia where, 
after five weeks, he negotiated treaties with twelve nations, 
sent agents to all quarters, and made his influence felt even 



CLARK. 105 

to the borders of the lakes. The tact and prudence of Captain 
Helm in command at Vincennes resulted in winning the con- 
fidence of the Indians to such an extent that they joined with 
him in the capture of an English post near the present site of 
Lafayette, Indiana. 

The headquarters of Colonel Hamilton, the infamous British 
commander, were at Detroit. He it was who incited the In- 
dians to carry the tomahawk and scalping knife into the fron- 
tier settlements. They were furnished by him with arms and 
ammunition and were paid a bounty for scalps. The success 
of Clark's expedition was not unnoticed by Hamilton, and on 
the 17th of December he set out at the head of a force of 
British regulars and Indians to recapture Vincennes. The 
garrison of the fort, consisting of Captain Helm and one en- 
listed man, surrendered with the honors of war. Hamilton, de- 
ciding on no further operations that season, dispersed his In- 
dians with orders to rejoin him in the spring, retaining only 
his regular force of eighty men. 

Clark, whose headquarters were at Kaskaskia, had no idea of 
surrendering the country to the British. He concentrated his 
forces of 200 men, and mounting two four-pound cannon and 
four large swivels on a large boat, set out for the recapture of 
Vincennes, 240 miles distant. And now began one of the most 
difficult and perilous campaigns on record. It cannot be better 
described than in Clark's own words : 

"We had now before us a route of 240 miles in length, at this time 
in many parts flowing with water, and exceeding bad marching. 
The first obstruction of consequence was on the 13th of February. 
Arriving at the two little Wabashes, although three miles asunder 
they now made but one, the flowing water between them being at 
least three feet deep, and in many cases four. This would have been 
enough to have stopped any set of men that were not in the same 
temper that we were. But for three days we continued to cross 
by building a large canoe, ferried across the two channels, the rest of 
the way we waded, building scaffolds at each to lodge our baggage until 
the horses crossed to take it. 

"It rained during one third of our march but we never halted for 
it. On the evening of the 17th we got to the lowlands of the river 



I06 CLARK. 

Unbara which we found deep in water, it being nine miles to St. Vin- 
cent, which stood on the east side of the Wabash, and every foot 
of the way covered with deep water. We marched down the little 
river in order to gain the banks of the main, which we did in about 
three leagues, made a small boat and sent an express to meet the 
big boat and hurry it up. 

"From the spot where we now lay it was about ten miles to Vin- 
cennes, and every foot of the way with the exception of two and 
one half miles three feet under water, and not a mouthful of pro- 
visions. 

"To our joy on the evening of the 23rd we got safe on terra firma, 
within half a league of the fort, covered by a small grove of trees 
where we had a full view of tjie wished for spot." 

Here some prisoners were taken from whom all the informa- 
tion required was obtained, and acting with his accustomed 
promptness Clark sent a letter into the town, advising all who 
wished to support the English to go into the fort, and the 
others to remain in their homes. Just before dark he disposed 
his force in such manner as to deceive the enemy as to the size 
of his force, displaying enough flags to show the presence of a 
thousand men. The view from the fort was so obstructed by 
the houses that Clark's men had full possession of the town be- 
fore their presence was known to the commander of the fort. 

The battle began. The artillery from the fort did little execu- 
tion. Creeping up to within a few yards of the fort a continu- 
ous fire was kept up upon the port-holes during the night. 
Clark's demand for surrender was refused, but after a continu- 
ous fire of three hours the British commander proposed a truce 
of three days. This request was peremptorily refused by 
Clark, who renewed his demand for immediate and uncondi- 
tional surrender, which was complied with, and at ten o'clock on 
the morning of Christmas day the American flag floated proud- 
ly over the fort. The capture of the Illinois posts, resulting in 
the permanent occupation of Illinois and Indiana by the Amer- 
icans, must always rank as an achievement that has few paral- 
lels in history. 

The Virginia Legislature took prompt action to secure the 
territory thus acquired, and an act was passed in October, 1779. 



CLARK. 107 

for "establishing the county of Illinois, and for the more effi- 
cient protection thereof." All territory west of Ohio and east 
of the Mississippi river was included in the county, which re- 
mained a dependency of Virginia tmtil its cession to the Gene- 
ral Government in December, 1780. 

The far-reaching effects of the Clark expedition was perhaps 
less understood by Americans east of the Alleghanies than by 
the British. If when peace was declared later, after the sur- 
render of Cornwallis, the territory embraced in the Illinois had 
remained a part of the Province of Canada, it would in all 
probability have been included in the British possessions. The 
independence of the thirteen colonies was assured. 

The country west of the Alleghanies was a "terra incognita" 
to the people of the east. Exhausted by a seven years' war, 
with only a germ of a general government, with an empty treas- 
ury, their French allies sailing away across the sea, it seems at 
this distance within the bounds of possibility that, but for the 
pluck and endurance of Clark and his band of heroes, in re- 
capturing Vincennes, the British ensign would have continued 
to wave over the territory of the Illinois. 

On his retirement from active service in 1783, after long and 
valuable service to the struggling settlements, Benjamin Harri- 
son, Governor of Virginia, expressed the thanks of the State 
Government in a letter to General Clark in the following elo- 
quent words : 

"Before I take leave of you I feel myself called upon, in the most 
forcible manner, to return you my thanks and those of my Council 
for the very great and singular services you have rendered your 
country, in wresting so great and valuable a territory out of the 
hands of the British enemy, repelling the attacks of their savage allies, 
and carrying on successful vjrar in the heart of their country. This 
tribute of praise and thanks so greatly due I am happy to communi- 
cate to you as the united voice of the Executive." 

The glory of George Rogers Clark in winning an empire 
from the crown of England has been eclipsed by the pyrotech- 
nical accounts of incidents of Eastern battle-fields, wherein the 



I08 CLARK. 

names of other commanders are inscribed high upon the scroll 
of fame; but the clear cold light of the record of Revolutionary 
days, shining upon all alike, reveals, below the immortal Wash- 
ington, few figures contemporaneous with George Rogers Clark 
to whom we as Sons of the American Revolution should bow 
with greater reverence. 



LEAp'l3 



